Talk To Me About Ghosts
by Obstreperous Wookie
Summary: [Sequel to Sam and Dean Who?] After her run-in with vampires and a certain pair of brothers, Riley tried to live a normal life. Tried-ish. But somehow the supernatural encounters seem to just keep coming.
1. Medelia Rose: Part One

Disclaimer: I used some Harry Potter lines. They belong to J.K.-bless her heart-not me.

A/N: In "Sam and Dean Who?" I mentioned Riley's best friend Libby. I also mentioned that Libby thought her house was haunted *heh heh heh* Here's a little fic that's been kicking around my brain for a while. :)

* * *

It all changed when my best friend Libby—in all her wacky unluckiness—woke up a ghost, and it started haunting her house.

The funny thing was, Libby had been swearing for years now that her house was haunted. I'd just never paid much attention to her rantings, because with Libby, it was always something.

Except, now...now I knew better. After my biological father-turned vampire-turned psychotic killer-turned kidnapper had tried to spirit me away from the great town of Eagle Point, Oregon, I most definitely knew better. I knew that the things only existing inside myths and horror stories were actually real and not to be messed with.

Sadly, Libby did not.

Last week, her parents had started renovating their ancient house, doing little things to keep the structure and integrity intact. And each day afterwards, she had excitedly updated me on every single weird thing was starting to happen. Creaking, whispers, dancing shadows.

The vampires trying to kidnap and turn me had been a wake-up call, and I had fervently tried to convince Libby that a ghost was bad news. She had blown me off in her typical Libby optimism. A ghost couldn't be bad. That was simply _inconceivable_.

Then, two nights ago, Libby had accidentally broken part of the wall or smashed a giant hole in it with some of the heavy equipment her parents were using to remodel the house. Or something like that. Her story kept changing every time. Either way, her parents had decided to just take the entire wall out, stating they'd wanted to do it for years. Of course, as soon as they started, the haunting had really kicked into gear, and Libby had finally started to believe me.

The marks helped, too. The morning after the construction started on the wall, Libby had woken up to find strange bruises on her arms. The day after that, she had sworn the antique picture frame on the wall moved. Next, it had been flickering lights and cold spots.

The fervent excitement while regaling me with daily reports had faded, turning slowly but surely to fear.

So, when Libby's dad took a nasty spill down the staircase and was staying overnight in the hospital with Libby's mom, Libby had called an emergency best friend sleepover, and I had complied.

Before heading over to Libby's, I had Googled all her reported occurrences, settling with the general consensus that it was definitely a haunting by a ghost or spirit or whatever they were called. Only, nothing I'd found would tell me how to get rid of it.

That still didn't stop me from going over, though. I'd already had my first encounter with the supernatural, and I had been alone at the time—without my family or anyone to rely on. It had been terrifying and dangerous, and there was no way I was going to abandon Libby to the same fate.

So I had come over, and I was now staring up at the front of Libby's house. Before this ghost stuff, it had always been "quaint" and "eccentric" in my mind. Now it was just "Libby's creepy-ass house."

I sighed as I walked morosely up the steps, because I really _had_ been trying to put all this monster stuff behind me. I really _had_ been trying to have a normal Senior year of high school.

But at the same time, something was churning in the pit of my stomach. It wasn't fear or revulsion, not like it had been during my first week of vampires. No, the feeling starting to grow in my stomach was worse. So much worse.

It was excitement.

Because really, there's nothing like a nice haunting to liven up your Friday nights.

* * *

The door opened before I could even knock, and Libby appeared. "Oh my gosh, I'm so glad you're here. This house is freaking me out. I can't be here alone," she gushed rapid-fire, grabbing my arm and pulling me inside.

I smiled halfheartedly. "What are best friends for if not to verify haunted houses and face down ghosts together?"

Libby gave me a curious look. "You know, you're awfully calm about all this. Usually you're all like 'No, Libby, there's no such thing as ghosts' and 'Libby, you've been coloring with Sharpies for too long.'"

I shrugged, pushing my hands into my pockets in what I hoped was a sheepish looking move. "Well, what can I say? Maybe ghosts _are_ real…" Then I gave her a stern look. "Or maybe your stupid house is leaking natural gas and you've been inhaling the fumes. Because, girl, I've taken all your Sharpies away, and you're still acting crazy. Either way, tonight…the truth comes out."

I said the last part with just the right amount of faux mysticism, and Libby let out a nervous laugh, but I could see how much she relaxed. Apparently me calling her crazy made her feel better, which was the whole point. She needed someone to be rational. Even if being rational meant lying my face off to my best friend. It was horrible, and my pants should have been in flames, but the alternative was probably worse.

I could just imagine it: _Yeah, Lib, you're definitely being haunted. Ghosts and monsters are real, by the way. They are clearly after you and your family. Alrighty, too-doo-loo. Try and live a normal life now that you know the truth._

Unwilling to do that to her, I just smiled and pulled two movies out of my bag. She gasped, her eyes widening in delight. "Harry Potter! Deathly Hallows part one and two!" She grabbed them from my hand and ran to the living room, screeching like a pterodactyl the whole way. I rolled my eyes and followed, glad that my plan to distract her had been a success. Honestly, we were both nerds, so it took very little to distract either one of us. And when Harry Potter was involved, it took almost nothing.

Libby had already thrown a pizza in the oven before I had come over, so we started the first movie, and then a few minutes later, paused it to grab some pizza. She liked cheese, but I was a die-hard Hawaiian fan, which meant we always split the pizza right down the center—just like we'd done since the start of middle school.

Libby loaded up with pizza and retreated back to the living room. After sliding two slices onto my plate, I stuck my head in her fridge. "I'm stealing a can of your mom's Coca-Cola," I yelled over my shoulder.

"Please do, save her from herself. I swear, that woman is a walking Coke ad," she yelled back. I snorted, always finding it hilarious whenever Libby referred to her mom as "that woman."

"I shall," I called pleasantly, grabbing a can and then making a beeline back to the couch. I dropped into the seat beside Libby. "Okay, I'm ready. Roll film." She pressed the play button and then tossed the remote aside, and we both dug into our pizza.

As the evening—and the movie—progressed, I pretended like nothing was wrong, and Libby drew her strength from my calm normality. She was totally into the movie, even tearing up in spots. When the first part ended, we stopped to put away the leftover pizza and to take a quick bathroom break.

"Can't you just buy me a new house?" She murmured, glancing around uneasily, unwilling to even leave the couch. "Now that you're rich?"

I poked her with my toe to get her moving, knowing she had a bladder the size of a pea.

"Am not," I called after her, even though I kind of was. Before the whole vampire-dad shenanigan, I had been just as poor as the next person. But, a few months after my biological father had his run in with Dean—more specifically Dean's machete—a lawyer had shown up to my house bearing James' will, and I had become the newest member of the "trust-fund kids" club.

I was, for all intents and purposes, filthy rich.

However, my parents having raised me right, I did not immediately go out and binge on fancy cars and booze. Almost all the money went straight into my bank account, with a little bit put aside for spending. Unbeknownst to my parents, I had paid off some of the house mortgage and part of Jake's college tuition. For myself, I had bought a new phone and—very lucratively, online—a machete like Dean's. And a year of mixed martial art lessons. That one was public knowledge, though. I couldn't exactly hide my disappearances four days out of the week now that I was no longer working at the clinic.

My parents thought it was great that I was getting so into something other than soccer. They didn't understand that I was only doing it because I never wanted to feel as helpless as I had felt against the vampires ever again. It was working, too. I was definitely slimming down, and I could actually hold my own in a fight. In the dojo anyway. I wasn't sure about the crossover rate between the real world and the supernatural side of things.

Libby came back from the bathroom, and I shook myself out of my thoughts long enough to put the next movie into the DVD player. Libby scrounged up the remote, and it started playing. Five minutes in, she relaxed, lulled into a steady sense of security, but I remained alert. Nothing had happened…yet. Hope for the best, be prepared for the worst. That was my motto.

Which, in hindsight, was a pretty dang good motto when dealing with the supernatural.

Around eleven, the air in the living room seemed to get a little cold. I didn't really notice it at first. Not until Libby and I's favorite set of lines. "How dare you stand where he stood," Libby proclaimed passionately, echoing Harry's accusation to Snape. "Tell them how it happened that night. Tell them how you looked him in the eye…a man who trusted you…and killed him. Tell them!"

I watched as a tiny bit of steam billowed from her mouth with the words, and my stomach turned sharply with apprehension. Then the lights flickered, and the TV went dark. Libby and I looked up, startled, and she clutched my arm.

"See! I told you I'm not crazy," she whispered fearfully.

As if that was what I wanted to hear at the moment. I didn't answer, though, because that was when I saw the ghost.

In the reflection of the dark TV screen, I caught a glimpse of a creepy old lady. Her skin was pale against her tattered, old fashion dress, and her neck was bent at an unnatural angle. She stood in place, somewhere behind the couch, flickering just like the lights.

Libby was busy looking around, so she missed the flickering reflection. Then the lights went out completely at the point, leaving us in darkness. I pulled Libby upright. "We need flashlights. Let's go get them from the bathroom," I said, keeping my voice calm and collected. The lights flickered back on, just for a second, and then back off.

Libby didn't get my calm, collected memo, and she started to race up the stairs for the flashlights. She got about six steps up when the lights flickered back on and she came to a stop with a scream. In the time it had taken for the lights to flicker, the ghost had reappeared on the step above Libby, translucently barring Libby's path. Its palm shot out towards Libby, and I watched as my best friend went flying backwards down the stairs.

"Lib," I shouted, sharp fear making my stomach burn. Libby hit the ground a second later, slamming down hard and coming to a jarring stop. I looked up the stairs for the ghost as I ran to Libby's side, but she was already gone, having flickered back out of sight as I watched Libby's fall.

Libby was utterly still when I reached her, which scared me more than the thought of a ghost coming back to get me. I rolled her onto her back, checking to see if she was breathing. She was, and the horrible fear faded slightly. Breathing, good. No bleeding, good. No apparent broken bones, good. There was a pretty nasty bump on her head, but I wasn't that worried. Libby was a total klutz, and I'd seen her with worse.

I remained crouched at Libby's side, keeping one hand on her shoulder to reassure myself that she was okay. With the other hand, I dug my phone out of my pocket. Punching in the number three on speed-dial, I waited desperately for a connection.

"It's Riley," I said tersely when it went through. "Talk to me about ghosts."

* * *

"Riley…" Sam groaned, sounding both exhausted and exasperated. "You're supposed—"

"To be living a normal life, yeah I know. A frigging ghost just threw my friend down the stairs. Now is not the time for a lecture, just tell me how to kill it." I didn't mean to make my words so panicked and harsh, but they came out that way regardless.

"Iron, you can disperse their form with iron or rock salt," Sam told me quickly, all business now.

"I'm not a freaking blacksmith. Where the heck do I find iron?" I half gritted, half yelled into the phone, completely stressed as I pivoted on my heels and frantically searched for any sign of the ghost's return.

"Look for an old fashioned fire poker. They're usually made of iron," Sam sounded completely unfazed, but I had to fight the urge to pull my hair out.

"It's two thousand thirteen, Sam! Do people even use fire pokers anymore?" Even so I looked around. Miraculously, due to the sheer ancient quality of Libby's house, I spotted one next to the gaping fireplace.

"Oh thank God, I found one." I ran to it and had just wrapped my fingers around the handle when the ghost flickered up beside Libby. "Oh, no you don't," I snarled, hurling the poker at her. It flipped handle over head as it flew through air, and as soon as the poker passed through the ghost, she dissipated in a swirl of mist. The poker hit the wall behind where she had been and clattered to the floor.

"It worked," I reported breathlessly, hurrying back to Libby and picking up the poker again.

"Okay, you have maybe a minute or two before it comes back. Find some salt and make a circle around yourself. Spirits can't cross a line of salt, so make sure it's solid and there are no breaks." Sam sounded so calm, which made me wonder how many times he had given these types of instructions or been in this situation.

"Circle of salt, got it." I used my shoulder to press the phone against my cheek and grabbed both of Libby's hands so that I could drag her with me as I moved out of the living room.

I scuttled backwards, pulling her along until I reached the relative safety of the kitchen. Then I went straight to the baking cupboard and pulled out the round container of salt. Pulling the little metal chute outwards, I poured a liberal amount of salt in a large circle around Libby and myself.

"Done," I said breathlessly, hating how alive this was making me feel. I should have been panicking or at the very least, freaking out. But I wasn't. This was a serious situation, and it shouldn't be giving me a rush. Yet it was, which meant there was something seriously wrong with me. _Gee, Ri, what else is new?_ I thought in disgust. "What now?"

Sam cleared his throat. "Okay, there are different kinds of spirits, but it doesn't really matter which type it is unless it's a poltergeist. Nothing came up back when I researched your town, which means it's either newly emerged or somehow something released it."

I processed what he was saying and efficiently worked my way towards the most probable answer. "Their house is ancient, and they just started remodeling. That's when things started happening. Lights, cold spots, bruises on Libby's arms."

"Not a poltergeist, then," he confirmed. "Okay, to put it to rest, you basically need to either salt and burn any physical remains of the spirit, or you need to salt and burn the object holding the spirit there."

"Uh…" I floundered for a bit, coming up with a blank. Libby had once mentioned her house originally being owned by a "Medelia Rose," but I had no sense of history about when or who that was. "Medelia Rose. I don't know anything about her. Oh crap." Even as I said her name, the ghost reappeared.

I gripped my iron poker, ready, in case the salt thing didn't work. Nothing happened, though. Medelia held out a hand, reaching for me, but it stopped short at the salt line. Almost like an invisible barrier was stopping any part of her from crossing over. Sweet.

In the background, I could hear Sam typing rapidly. Thank goodness I had caught him at his laptop. I could tell he was reading, so I tried my best to be patient. "Okay, here's something," he conceded finally. "Medelia Rose, born in nineteen-oh-three, died in nineteen-fifty-four. So get this, she was murdered. In her house. She was, uh, thrown down the stairs, and it broke her neck. And…oh." He dropped off, sounding troubled.

"What? Oh? No, no. No, oh's," I said quickly, staring at Medelia and having a hard time stomaching the fact that her head was at a disgusting angle and that she was leering at me. The fact that I was face-to-face with a ghost was hard to wrap my head around, too.

She flickered out of sight, which made everything ten times worse. Seeing her was better. I couldn't even begin to imagine what she was doing when invisible.

I spun a quick circle, not seeing Medelia anywhere. Crap, where was she and what was she trying to do? "Sam? You got to give me something here," I pleaded.

"She was cremated," Sam said finally, voice tight.

"I take it that's bad?" I had no idea, but that sounded bad.

"That means something is holding her back, but it's not her remains. It could be something like a lock of hair in a locket, or it could be a personal item. Is there anything in the house that's an antique from her time living there?" Well, at least he hadn't said I needed to find her remains. I wasn't sure if I could handle with tracking down someone's remains and torching them. Personal items, I could work with, though.

I looked around, my hopes sinking lower and lower with every additional antique I saw. "Libby's parents are historical nuts. I'm literally surrounded by old things."

Sam said a bad word, and I had to agree. "How opposed do you think Libby's family would be if I salted and burned the entire house?" I asked jokingly.

"That probably wouldn't work," Sam said seriously. "You have to make sure whatever is holding her back is completely destroyed. Burning the house down isn't a guarantee. Especially if it's something small."

My eyes got big. "Wow, uh, I was kidding, but good to know. Arson is a negatory, got it."

Sam sighed, and I could imagine him pinching the bridge of his nose tiredly. "Okay, uh, tell me more about the remodel. If that's what released the spirit, then maybe that will help you narrow things down."

I walked to the edge of the salt, peeking through the doorway of the kitchen towards the halfway torn down wall. Libby had said that weird things had started happening after construction on that particular wall, so I figured it was kind of like Ground Zero. Except I couldn't see a thing, and although I'd passed by the wall a hundred times, I couldn't remember much about it. Which meant I needed to get closer and take a look. Awesome.

"Hey Sam," I ventured, "what's going to happen if I leave this circle of salt?"

There was a scraping sound of a chair and sharp intake of breath, like he'd just sat upright really fast. "Riley do not, I repeat, do not leave the salt. If the spirit's able to manifest and throw people around, then it's powerful. If you leave the salt, it _will_ kill you."

I chewed on my lip for a second, deliberating.

Behind me, the window exploded inwards, and I yelped, immediately ducking, not that it did me any good. Glass pelted my back painfully through my thin T-shirt, and a breeze rippled through the kitchen, causing the curtains to billow a little.

I watched in horror as the granules of salt wavered, moved a little by the breeze. It wasn't enough to break the line, but any stray gust of wind stronger than a breeze would do the trick. I said a naughty word, dropping the phone and scrambling for the container of salt. Then I fed the entire container into the circle, making the line as thick as I could.

I could hear Sam yelling into the phone, and after I tossed the empty container away, I scooted across the floor on my butt to pick my phone up again. Pressing it to my ear with a shaking hand, I laid out the bare facts. "Sam, she's trying to break the line. If I stay in here, she's going to kill me anyway. And then she'll kill Libby. Is there anything else I need to know?"

He said a whole bunch of stuff that I didn't really pay attention to. All I really focused on were his repeated instructions to salt and burn. Medelia appeared again, standing listlessly outside the circle, and I glanced over at Libby's prone form, realizing that I was all that stood between her and what was mostly likely a horrible death. Not too long ago, I had been the helpless one, and it had been Sam and Dean standing in my place.

And they hadn't backed down. No, they had firmly planted themselves between me and the danger without even hesitating. Now it was my turn to do the same for my friend.

I stood up slowly, readjusting my grip on the iron poker. "I'm gonna have to call you back, Sam," I stated as an eerie calm came over me. Then I hung up on him, despite his continuing protests.

In front of me, Medelia continued to flicker and jump from spot to spot. I waited until she settled in one place, hoping she could understand me. "Alright, ghost lady," I informed her, "you and I have some business to settle."


	2. Medelia Rose: Part Two

Disclaimer: Sam Winchester is not my character.

A/N: Yay, Riley. Kicking butt and taking names. Let me know what you guys think. Also, I threw a Crowley reference in the mix. See if you can find it. Allons-y!

* * *

Despite what Sam may have thought, I wasn't completely stupid and suicidal. There was no way I was just going to hop out from behind the salt barrier and wait for Medelia to do something terrible to me. So, using what little logic I could scrape together, I waited until Medelia did her disappearing act again before making my move.

As soon as she flickered out of sight, I left Libby—careful to not break the line of salt—and ran for stupid wall that had probably started this stupid haunting.

When I reached the wall, I glanced around desperately, not knowing how much time I had before Medelia noticed I wasn't in the kitchen anymore. There was nothing spectacular about the wall itself. Half the old fashioned plaster board was gone, leaving gaping spaces between support beams. Two foot wide compartments were formed, each about a foot tall where the plasterboard was intact on both sides near the floor. I leaned over to look in the three different compartments, but I didn't see much other than dust and plaster fragments.

Off to the side, there was a pile of antique picture frames that had likely been hanging on the wall. There was a butt-ugly, wood picture frame sitting in on the top of the stack. Normally, I wouldn't have paid any attention to it, other than to wonder why someone had thought it would be a good creative choice to combine a swirling vine design with a flower that looked suspiciously like marijuana and then carved it into the wood along the outside of the frame.

But the frame wasn't important. What had caught my eye was the old black and white picture inside it, because I recognized one of the faces staring back at me.

High cheekbones, regal stare, dark curls framing a haughty pair of eyes. Yeah, it was her. The neck wasn't broken, but I could still tell. Medelia. She was beautiful in the picture. But beautiful in a kind of cold way. There was a man standing behind her in the photo, his hand resting lightly on her shoulder. I didn't know who he was, but from the way he was staring down at her adoringly, I figured they were in love.

In love or not, I couldn't take the chance that this was holding her back. I grabbed the photo with my free hand just as something sent me flying backwards. My stomach dropped at the feeling of weightlessness, and then I met the wall with an explosive huff of expelled air. The picture frame fell from my fingers, but the poker did not, which I supposed was more important anyways.

The pain was ridiculous, though. Along with having the breath knocked out of me, the entire length of me felt like it was being compressed into Jell-o. Not a fun feeling. I dropped to the floor in a pathetic heap, landing on my hands and knees. My knuckles rapped against the floor painfully as I was both unable and unwilling to let go of the poker.

I came up to my knees, looking around for Medelia. She appeared in the middle of the room, holding out her hand towards me in perfect mimicry of Darth Vader's signature chokehold. What felt like iron bands wrapped around my throat, and I was once again yanked through the air. Only this time, I went flying up the stairs and hit the landing in an uncontrolled skid.

I lay there gasping, for a long moment, letting the dancing stars clear from my vision. "So that's what it feels like," I grated out absently before pushing myself upright. Miraculously, the poker was still clenched in my hand.

Medelia appeared again, this time her hand going around my throat in an actual chokehold. She flickered in place, and her face stretched into a ghastly smile. At the same time I realized that she was going to throw me down the stairs, my hand came up, and the iron poker swished through her once again. She dissipated, and I bent over, dropping my hands onto my knees. Despite my lack of oxygen, I still had a teensy bit of time to gloat mentally.

Boom—Riley, two; ghost with stair fetish, zero.

As soon as I had gotten my breath back, I hustled down the stairs and grabbed the fallen picture of Medelia and her beau off the floor. Then, taking a deep gasping breath, I booked it to the safety of the salt line in the kitchen. Tossing the picture into the circle with Libby, I went straight to the cupboard over the fridge. That was where Libby's parent kept their stash of alcohol. Selecting the first bottle I laid eyes on, I grabbed it and jumped back into the salt circle.

My next move was to dig around in the drawer Libby's family reserved for fancy cooking utensils. They might be hippies, obsessed with antiques, but they were blissfully up-to-date on cooking tech. In fact, their latest acquisition was a small flambé torch that Libby's dad used when he wanted to get all cultured and high-class with his meals.

Flipping the safety switch off, I depressed the trigger and let out a delighted gasp when a small cone of flame shot from the nozzle. "Oh, yeah, that'll do nicely."

I pulled a big, metal bowl from another cupboard and then double checked the salt line. It was still intact, so I knelt on the tile floor and gathered my materials. Pulling the picture free of the frame, I dropped them both into the bowl. Then I took the tip of my finger and dragged it against the thickest part of the salt line to siphon off a tiny bit of the salt while leaving the line intact. It was enough for three good pinches, and I sprinkled the granules over the picture and frame. Next was the alcohol, which I hoped would help the stuff burn faster. I pulled the cork out of the bottle, using my teeth like they do in the movies, and dumped a liberal amount of the amber drink out into the bowl.

Then, just for liquid courage, I took a swig.

And promptly spit it out, gagging.

"Oh my gosh, that is nasty," I wheezed, vowing never to drink whatever this was when I was older. I flipped the small bottle around to read the label. "Glencraig, scotch. Blegh," I finished with a shudder.

Medelia flickered back into view, once again parked right outside the line of salt. "Good timing. Sayonara, bitch," I announced, which was probably the rudest thing I'd ever said to anyone in my life. With that, I depressed the trigger on the flambé torch and lit up the contents of the bowl like a frigging bonfire.

Only…nothing happened. Medelia remained in place even as the contents of the bowl crackled and popped in the flames.

I sneezed, the wood and charred salt tickling my nose with acrid smoke. "Well, this is awkward," I noted, my stomach twisting into a knot of fear.

My phone rang, off to my right, startling me into screaming like a pathetic idiot. I scrambled over to it, saw that Sam was calling, and answered it as quickly as my fumbling fingers would allow. "Not dead," I prefaced before launching into my panicked babble. "I found a picture frame. Burned it. Didn't work. I don't know what's holding her here. And also, scotch is nasty."

"Scotch is…never mind. I found something," Sam said urgently. "Medelia Rose and her fiancée Nestor built the house by themselves. Apparently, there was an accident during the construction and Medelia was injured. She lost part of her finger."

I gagged, realizing what that meant. "I have to go find her finger…and burn it? Oh dear Lord, is this what my life has come to?"

Sam bypassed my complaints with brisk efficiency and went straight to business. "If she's only now haunting the house, then something must have released her spirit. You said the wall was what started the whole thing, so it's probably somewhere in there."

"Her finger is...inside...the wall? That's disgusting," I said. I looked back up at her creepy, ghost-y self. "You're disgusting," I told her. Then I felt a bit bad, because maybe it wasn't her fault that she was still stuck here. Of course, she had thrown multiple people down the stairs, and she had tried to do it to me as well. Any guilt that I had dissipated pretty quickly after that realization.

I thought back to the three compartments at the bottom of the wall that were basically collecting whatever debris fell between the two linings of plaster molding. Yeah, a finger could have totally fallen, and be hidden, in there after all these years. "It's not like a finger…finger. Is it, Sam?" I didn't know if I really had the guts to pick up a severed finger.

"It's probably a bone by this time. Maybe a few segments of bone," he verified.

"Oh thank God. Killing ghosts, no problem. Picking up dead fingers, so not happening." I peeked up at Medelia, wondering vaguely how I was going to get past her this time. I didn't think she was going to fall for the same trick twice, which meant I had to be creative. "Okay, call you back in a minute. Hopefully." I hung up and set the phone down, rocking back on my heels thoughtfully.

I did the finger thing again, carefully siphoning a little more salt off the line and gathering just enough for a handful. Then I poured a great deal more scotch on the smoldering remains of the picture frame and tossed a bit more salt into the terrible mix. Stuffing the flambé torch into my back pocket, I picked up the handful of salt and held it ready. I figured I'd get one shot at this before Medelia got smart, so I had to make it count. Setting the metal bowl down just barely inside the border, I stood as close to the line as I could get before crossing it. Then I took one last deep breath and kicked myself into gear.

Flinging the handful of salt as hard as I could at Medelia, I scooped up the metal bowl and ran for the wall. She dissipated when the scattered salt crystals whipped through her, but somehow I didn't think it'd last as long as when she was dispelled with iron.

I slid to a stop at the broken wall and, without hesitation, dug my hand around in the first compartment. I felt a few nails, chunks of plaster, and bits of linty fuzz, but not much else. The second compartment was much the same. I brought up handfuls of plaster and other crap, but no finger. And I was running out of time.

Pulling the torch from my back pocket, I lit the pool of liquor in the bowl on fire. Medelia appeared behind me, and I flung the iron poker at her in a last ditch attempt. I didn't bother to look where I was throwing, and it didn't matter. Medelia had wised up, and she had already flickered to a new position as the poker flew through the air.

But that was okay, because as she took the time to move, I plunged my hand into the third compartment, digging up and tossing whatever I found into the flaming bowl. Finally, my scrabbling fingers came across two small, round shapes, and I scooped them up with a triumphant yell and threw them viciously into the flames.

Medelia writhed, then, and her hands hooked into claws and reached for me, but it was too late. Flames burst out over her skin, consuming her from the inside out. "No," she screamed, long and drawn out.

I'm pretty sure I was screaming right along with her.

Flames consumed her until there was nothing but glowing embers floating about in the air, and then it all vanished, like it was being sucked into a wormhole.

I remained in my kneeling position, too shocked to really do anything but stare at the empty place Medelia had been. "Good Lord, how am I even still alive?" I wondered vaguely. I fell backwards, sitting down hard, and stretched my legs out in front of me as I reviewed what had just happened.

I had just killed a ghost. All by myself. I had left the protection of the salt and run out here in the vague hopes of finding her finger and burning it before she killed me. Oh my gosh, I had finally snapped. I was really, for reals, crazy. I mean, who even does something like that?

I flopped onto my back, staring up at the ceiling. "Wow," I said quietly, half-hoping none of this was real. Except that I knew it was. So really, my life was just that crazy.

In the kitchen, I could hear my phone ringing and vibrating against the tile, but I didn't move to go get it. It was probably just Sam, wanting to know if I was alive.

I laughed, then, at the sheer absurdity of that last thought. But I climbed to my feet nonetheless, knowing I shouldn't keep him waiting. I plodded back to the kitchen slowly, feeling every ache and twinge from being thrown against a wall. When I reached my phone, I dropped to the ground, too tired to stand anymore.

"Still not dead," I said tiredly, by way of greeting. I scooted backwards to lean against the cupboard, dropping my forehead onto my knees as I pressed the phone to my ear.

"And the ghost?" Sam actually sounded worried, and I almost laughed. Then I sobered, realizing that he had good cause to be worried. Back when I'd first met him, Sam had said that when people have true encounters with the supernatural, they tend to die. And it was true. That's how Sam and Dean found their jobs, after all, following trails of bodies and killing the monsters that had done it. So joking about it was not the way to go right now.

I sighed, marveling about how weird it was that I felt like sleeping for a year when the entire confrontation had taken less than fifteen minutes. But I hastened to reassure him with as much energy as I could muster. "Final score—Riley Stewart, three; Medelia Rose, zero. Thanks for the assist, by the way. Totally saved my bacon—oh, bacon!" I sat upright, spurred on by the thought of bacon. Thankfully Libby's family, while being completely hippy-ish, was not vegetarian. Libby was just as enamored with bacon as I was. That settled it. After she woke up, we were going to have celebratory bacon.

"Uh, yeah, you're welcome," Sam said, clearing his throat awkwardly. He was probably weirded out by my random topic shift. But it was bacon, and I couldn't help myself. It was like my supernatural-trauma comfort food.

"So…what are you guys up to? Got any juicy details for me?" I asked curiously.

"Riley…" he groaned in warning.

"Yeah, yeah. Pretend to be normal. I know the drill. Well, I guess if I have to be normal, I need to clean up this mess before Libby wakes up." I frowned down at her, wishing she were awake to help me. But that would have negated the whole point of covering up any evidence. Typical.

"Alright, I'll let you get to it. And Riley? I'm glad you're okay. But this doesn't change anything. You can still live a normal life." He was so sincere about it, which made it almost worse.

So I downplayed his sentiment with cheery sass. "Whatever you say, giganticus. Catch you on the flip side." I hung up and tossed my phone onto the ground, not enthused in the least about cleaning things up. But cleaning was inevitable when it came to the supernatural side of life. Vampires, ghosts—it was all the same. Clean, clean, clean.

The first thing I did was grab a garbage bag and sweep up the salt. Then I tossed the empty salt container in the bag and went to the living room. Nothing was out of place, which seemed contradictory to how many times people had been thrown around in here with ghost mojo. It made clean-up easier for me, though, so I wasn't complaining.

The bowl had long since extinguished, leaving a slop made of goopy ash, wood, and plaster bits. I grimaced, tipping the bowl and shaking the crap into the bag. The bowl itself was a little charred, and I dearly hoped it would wash off. Otherwise I was going to have to explain a burnt picture frame, mysterious salt shortage, clear alcohol consumption, and a burnt bowl.

Heading back to the kitchen, I put the flambé torch and scotch back in their respective locations before dumping the bowl in the sink. After hiding the trash bag full of crap in the bottom of the garbage can, I went about washing out the bowl. Thankfully, all the dark residue came off without too much scrubbing.

I had just finished drying and putting the bowl away when Libby let out a little groan and stirred to life. I grabbed her arms and dragged her back into the living room, to the approximate spot she had fallen. Then I sat down beside her, trying not to let my exhaustion peak.

"R'ley, wha' happen'd?" Libby slurred quietly after about a minute.

"What do you remember?" I asked nervously.

She rubbed her forehead, feeling the bruise. "Uh, Harry Potter. Lights went out, then nothing." Her slurring faded away, which was good, and she moved to sit up. I put an arm around her, trying not to let my complete and utter relief at her memory loss show as I pulled her upright.

"Good news, Lib" I said, panting. "Your house is not haunted." Then I fixed her with a stern look. "Bad news—you're still a complete klutz. A picture must have fallen off the wall, tripping you, and you totally went all swan lake down the stairs. You did manage to utterly destroy the picture, though. I had to throw it away."

Even though the picture hadn't been anywhere near the stairs, it was an easier story to believe than a ghost throwing her down the stairs, or Libby somehow managing to throw herself down the stairs, despite her well-known clumsiness.

She looked around groggily, but was coherent enough to give me an unconcerned shrug. "So there was no ghost haunting my house?"

"There is no ghost haunting your house," I confirmed, which was probably the most truthful thing I had said to her all night.

Libby let out a little huff of breath. "Oh, well. It's probably for the best."

"Yeah," I told her. "Definitely for the best."


	3. Mister Farmer: Part One

A/N: Sorry for the long break between chapters. Finals were killer! Ehhhhm, yeah. Got nothing else to say. Awkward. :P

* * *

Not two months after the Medelia Rose fiasco, Libby was back to her high maintenance, potentially life altering antics. She was being evasive, which meant she thought she was being clever. Libby only fancied herself clever when she thought she was broadening my horizons. And Libby only thought she was broadening my horizons when she was shoving ghosts or paranormal occurrences down my throat.

So we were going to a haunted house. I was ninety-seven point four percent sure of it. And any second now she was going to rub it in my face with her cheery optimism.

I closed my locker and slung my backpack over my shoulder just as Libby sidled up to me. "You'll never guess where we're going," she told me excitedly.

"You're right," I said blandly, rolling my eyes. "I'll never guess."

She frowned at me, her eyes narrowing in determination. "I'm only trying to broaden your horizons, Riley Stewart. We graduate high school—which is arguably the easiest time of our lives—in just four more weeks. We're supposed to be enjoying the little things in life before we have to actually grow up and be responsible. And going to a haunted house will be fun, just you wait and see."

_Ooohp, there it is_, I thought to myself. And then I tried to smile. I really did. But I couldn't fake it, not even a little. If only she knew. If only she understood what was out there. Back when I'd taken care of the ghost in her house, I had done a good job convincing Libby that ghosts weren't real. Too good of a job apparently.

Now, Libby wholeheartedly believed that ghosts were nothing more than fiction. It had all been fine and dandy…until it somehow managed to kickstart to Libby's ridiculous obsession with debunking every ghost story and haunted house within the state of Oregon. And, of course—despite my promise to Sam and Dean about trying to be normal—I had to go with her in the off chance that one of them turned out to be the real deal.

So really, all I could do was grump internally about my obligation. I loved Libby; I really did. She was like the sister I never had. But in that moment, as she escorted me out to her environmentally conscious Prius, I didn't necessarily have to like her. Or her car, for that matter. I swear, with Libby's parents being the hippy, antique-obsessed therapists that they are, Libby was going to fit right in with the rest of the liberal weirdos in Seattle, Washington. That's where she was going in the fall—University of Washington. Libby reminded me on a daily basis that her future school had the number two psychology program nationwide. She also reminded me that The Art Institute of Seattle had an excellent fine arts program. In fact, I was approximately due for my scheduled reminder.

"You know," Libby mused, fishing her keys from her backpack pocket, "there's still time for you to decide whether you want to go to The Art Institute of Seattle instead of the Pacific Northwest College of Art. Seattle would be very lucky to have you."

I rolled my eyes and climbed in. "No, Lib. I'm not moving to Seattle. I like the fact that I'll only be a few hours away from home." I twisted in my seat, surveying the guy sitting in Libby's backseat. "Hi, Trevor. So Libby roped you into coming along on her fanatic, ghost-busting social outing too?"

Trevor opened his mouth. "Don't answer that, Trevor," Libby ordered imperiously, climbing in and closing her door. Trevor closed his mouth.

Trevor was a quiet guy. He wasn't technically considered popular—a little too nerdy for that—but everyone liked him nonetheless. Plus, he was the go-to guy for computer or technical assistance.

For some odd reason, Trevor had taken a shine to Libby somewhere around freshmen year. They were polar opposites, but they kind of worked, regardless. Libby was chatty and outgoing, and Trevor was quiet and reserved. Libby liked to say she brought out the best in him, but we all knew it was Trevor who shielded the rest of us from the worst of Libby's fervor.

"So why did she make _you_ come, Trevor?" I asked, even though I had a pretty good idea. In the backseat, Trevor opened his mouth to answer.

"Trevor's here to document our findings and prove this place is a hoax once and for all," Libby asserted. Behind us, Trevor closed his mouth. He did hold up his video camera, though, and he offered me a small, helpless smile. I rolled my eyes again, and we bonded over the repeated mutual experience of being rail-roaded by the Libby Express.

"Oh, hey—can we stop by my house drop off my backpack?" I asked.

"Yep, already on it," Libby replied, pulling out of the parking lot with exaggerated care. She always drove like a grandma, and today was no exception. We pulled out onto the road and promptly got passed by some stupid sophomore in his annoyingly loud, giant pick-up truck. I glanced out the window, catching sight of a police car hiding behind some houses.

"Cop on the right," I warned her. I shouldn't have bothered, because Libby was going the exact speed limit just like she always did. Still, I felt that it was definitely part of a best friend's job to warn of impending cops.

Settling my backpack on my knees, I stared out the window and watched the town roll by. It was a nice, normal town, I realized. When it wasn't being invaded by vampires. But even so, I was excited to head off to college. I had less than four weeks left of high school, and I would probably head off to my new school partway through the summer. It wasn't like I was going out of state, like Libby was, but my chosen college was still far enough that I was leaving home. I was going to be fully independent for the first time in my life, and it was really exciting. And scary.

As we pulled up to my house, I stared at it in the realization that I didn't want to leave. My house was familiar, consistent. The world I was heading into was no such thing. Yet I was still excited to move on. Move on to what, I didn't know quite yet. But I was moving on to something, and that was a step in the right direction.

Beside me, Libby cleared her throat. It was polite Libby-speak for "Get out of my car and go drop off your backpack."

"Uh…yeah. Be right back," I said, climbing out and running up the walkway to my house.

I didn't actually care about ditching my backpack. What I really wanted was to pick up my official Libby Adventure Survival Kit. It wasn't much by way of Hunting gear, but it did have a few ghost-y essentials. Lighter fluid and a lighter. Lots of salt. A short piece of iron chain. And my newest favorite—a Bug-a-Salt. It was little more than a glorified Nerf gun, but it did something fabulous. Instead of shooting foam darts, it shot salt.

The gun was originally built for hunting mosquitoes or flies, so by itself, it wasn't that spectacular, but I had modified the barrel and parts of the spring firing mechanism until it resembled a bit more of an actual weapon and a bit less of a glorified bug killer.

Actually, I had researched the whole gun modification topic pretty extensively, ending up on several morally questionable websites that may or may not have belonged to a homegrown terrorist organization. Potentially getting on the government's watch list was worth it, though. After days of research and multiple hours of tinkering, the gun now shot a wide spray of rock salt at a very unsafe velocity. And even though I couldn't actually show it to anyone, I was ridiculously proud of my newest gadget.

But, hopefully, I wouldn't have to use it today. Hopefully, I wouldn't have to use it at all. Still, I never went on any Libby Adventures, mundane or otherwise, without my emergency backpack. Besides Hunting gear, it had the regular stuff: first aid/trauma kit, rope, flashlight, military food rations, my machete, a compass, and some extra clothes. Some of the stuff I hadn't used before, but some of the stuff I used on a regular basis.

I wasn't yet sure which category my new ghost-busting equipment was going to fall into, though. Hopefully, it would be the former. But then again, I always told myself to hope for the best and prepare for the worst. With Libby, it was usually the worst. She sometimes teased me for bringing my kit along, but when your best friend is an eternal klutz and a partial danger to those around her, you learn to adapt. And carrying around an emergency backpack was definitely my version of adapting.

Throwing my boring school backpack in the back of my closet, I pulled my emergency kit out and sprinted back down the stairs. "Headed out with Libby!" I called to anyone that may have been home. "If you haven't heard from us in a couple hours, send help. Or bacon. Actually, just send bacon."

"Yeah, yeah, bacon, got it," my father called back absently. Then he continued, more focused. "Have fun. No wait, I got this. Uh, don't talk to strangers. Be safe. Don't do drugs."

I snorted, pausing halfway through the doorway. "Nice try, Dad. Keep working on that." Then I closed the door and ran out to Libby's car.

"You know, I don't understand your pathological need to bring that backpack everywhere we go, and I'm starting to sense a formation of an unhealthy attachment to it," Libby announced.

"Whoa there, Psych major, no psychoanalyzing people until you're actually in college. Besides, the contents of this backpack will probably save your life at least once or twice within the next four weeks." Libby pulled a wry face, but Trevor laughed quietly to himself in the backseat. He'd been on the receiving end of Libby's clumsiness far too often to discount my words as anything but the truth.

He just didn't know how far that spectrum of truth actually extended.

Of course, neither did I. Not at first, anyways.

* * *

The haunted house we were going to debunk turned out to be a rundown farmhouse in the middle of nowhere. From the outside, it looked like a one story house and a basement, if the old root cellar doors on the side were anything to go by.

We all got out of the car, but stood by our respective doors, just studying the house and grounds. The yard was filled with scraggly weeds and overgrown grass, and the house wasn't that interesting. The wood was a faded brown, and the windows had old, mostly shattered glass in them. But it still just looked like an abandoned farmhouse. There was nothing special about it, nothing giving off any ominous vibes.

Yet there was a solid metal chain on the door, probably there to keep nosy kids like us out. It looked relatively new in comparison to the dilapidated state of the place.

Worse yet, I was starting to get that prickling, excited tension in my stomach—a feeling that only seemed to manifest when I was about to have a face-to-face with some delightful supernatural creature. The last time I'd felt this way was taking care of Medelia.

And if I was starting to feel this way now, it probably meant one of two things. One, deep down there was some part of me that was hoping to have a little supernatural showdown, which meant that I was making something out of nothing. Or two, I was starting to develop a sense of when something other than plain old vanilla humans was nearby.

Of the two, I wasn't sure which was worse. Similarly, of the two, I didn't know which one I hoped was true.

"Oh look," I said, mustering uncharacteristic enthusiasm, "the door is chained shut. I guess we have to go home now." I climbed back into the car and shut the door, but Libby just leaned down to glare at me.

"We are not leaving until we've proven that all this ghost nonsense is a hoax. Here, look at this." She dug around in her backpack and pulled out a bunch of folded papers. I flipped them open and started to read.

They were newspaper articles, not much more than short blurbs. The house was part of the Cowen homestead, and it had apparently been in the Cowen family for five generations. Then, six months ago, it had been donated by the remaining descendants to the Oregon Historical Society. The organization had tried to clean it up and make it a landmark, but a series of accidents had put an end to that particular notion. Now it just sat abandoned, and supposedly haunted.

Which was probably why Libby was so interested. Two different witness accounts had stated it was haunted, and Libby had decided to come be the ultimate judge. Part of me wondered if she really did want to disprove ghosts like she said, or if she was hoping that she would find a ghost to disprove her partial disbelief. Either way, I didn't like it.

I set the articles on the driver seat, not bothering to read the last few pages, and gave Libby a skeptical look. "I don't know, Lib. Seems awful thin to go on." In reality, I was lying through my teeth. This _did _sound like a haunting. Some dead Cowen was probably disgruntled due to the descendants passing off the house and leaving the farm. If the spirit was angry enough, then it would have the power to haunt the farmhouse and cause the so called "accidents." Oh joy.

"Nonsense," Libby announced, closing her door and marching towards the house. She reached into her back pocket as she walked and pulled out a small case. I groaned, recognizing her stupid lock picking kit.

Back in seventh grade, Libby and I had gone through a spy phase. Somehow, she had gotten her hands on a real lock picking kit, and we had foolishly gotten pretty good at getting through locked doors. At the time, it had seemed normal. Now, however, I realized the absurdity of two middle schoolers learning how to pick locks. There was nothing normal about that. Nothing. We were absolute menaces as children, I just knew it.

Libby was still a menace. Or at least _I_ thought so. She bent over and pulled out two different picks, fiddling with the padlock for a couple minutes before it popped open. She jumped up and down with a squeal, waving victoriously at me and Trevor. I sighed and face-palmed, climbing out of the car with dark resignation. Trevor trailed behind me, and I heard a sigh from him, too.

Libby pulled the chain away from the door and pushed it open. She went in first, and Trevor followed, holding his camera at the ready. I followed, pulling my backpack around like a baby carrier, and unzipping it a little so that I could wrap my hand around the handle of my salt gun.

The farmhouse was simple. We entered into a relatively bare kitchen. There were a few cupboards and several shelves, some empty and some filled with jars of…goop. The flooring was entirely wooden, and it looked relatively sturdy, but it still creaked loudly as we walked in. It was slightly unnerving, hearing our every step being announced with wooden groans, but Libby forged onwards, bypassing the sturdy wooden chairs—the table strangely absent—and going through a doorway on the left.

The doorway led into a living room and bedroom of sorts. There was an old rocking chair that was more collapsed wooden pieces than chair. On the other side of the room, there was a big bed. The room was also colder than the kitchen had been, which was a tip-off for me. I tightened my grip on the gun and became hypervigilant. There was a spirit hanging around here, I could tell. I just didn't see him or her yet.

Libby frowned, looking around. "This is spectacularly underwhelming," she said. I shrugged, not sure what she wanted me to say. "Okay, you were right. Maybe we should just get o—" Libby never got the chance to finish her sentence, because the flooring beneath her feet twisted and groaned before shattering and dropping out from under her.

"Libby," I screamed, lunging towards her as she fell. She disappeared through the floor with a shriek, and Trevor and I crowded forward. We both came to a stop over the hole, and Trevor's face went white. I'm sure mine was the same as I stared down at Libby. She was lying limp in the dirt, pieces of wood scattered underneath and around her. The worst part of it was that she was lying so still that she almost looked…

No, I wasn't going to go there. Libby wasn't dead. She wasn't. But she _was _hurt, which meant I needed to find a way down into the basement, pronto. I spun on my heel, intent on finding the door that lead down there. I spotted it on my right and took one step towards it before coming to a stop again.

The ghost appeared a few feet in front of me, flickering once before solidifying. He was tall and muscled and whipcord thin, like he'd been doing manual labor his entire life. Plus, he had a beard and was dressed blue overalls. "Wow, how delightfully stereotypical," I muttered under my breath.

"What?" Trevor asked from behind me. He came up behind my shoulder, but Mr. Farmer was already gone by then, flickering back out of sight. "Did you see something?" He whispered breathlessly.

"Yeah, I totally just saw Casper the Friendly Ghost," I said sarcastically. "No, Trevor. I did not see anything. Don't be ridiculous—that's Libby's job." I felt kind of bad, but at the same time, I was pretty sure facing down a ghost would cost Trevor years of therapy. Of course, maybe he'd see Mr. Farmer despite my efforts, and the decision to shield his sanity would be taken out of my hands all the same. There were no guarantees, but I could try to help him as much as possible.

To our left, the floor started to groan and twitch, the boards creaking under strain. One of them shattered suddenly—startling the both of us—and fell down into the basement. My eyes widened as I caught a flicker of blue denim, and I turned to Trevor quickly.

"Now would be a fabulous time to run away," I informed him. Trevor's eyes widened, and he stumbled backwards, turning tail as he ran. That was fine, though. "Remember," I called after him, "find help. Libby needs you to find help." I hoped that would encourage him to leave and not come back for however long it took me to deal with this irate farmer.

I watched—only half focused—through the window as Trevor hurtled through the door and off the porch. He didn't get more than two steps towards Libby's car when a board tore itself free of the railing on the porch steps and nailed him in the back. He went down and skidded to a stop in the tall grass, going still. "Seriously?" I wondered aloud, partly exasperated. I could still see him breathing, though, so I wasn't that worried.

Then I turned around slowly, feeling strangely excited and confident. "Alright, boy-o, it's just you and me now," I said, pulling my salt gun free of the backpack. "Come at me, bro." In my other hand, I held a mirror. It was angled enough that I could see what was behind me without having to turn and check constantly.

Originally, I hadn't known how helpful it would be, but just like with most things involving the supernatural, I found out pretty dang quickly.


	4. Mister Farmer: Part Two

A/N: Boom, new chapter. Enjoy :)

* * *

Mr. Farmer appeared, flickering up behind me. Thanks to the mirror, I caught sight of him right off the bat and was already spinning to face him when I was suddenly flying through the air.

Oh, yeah, this was the part of ghosts that I was really starting to hate.

I hit hard, my shoulders slamming into a little shelf fixed to the wall. Only, it didn't feel so little when my shoulder blades crashed into it, and I fell to the ground with a yelp, trying to ignore the harsh pain shooting through my shoulders. Gosh dang, that really hurt. I scrambled backwards, putting my back to the wall, and readied my salt gun.

For all the times I had been thrown around, there was one good thing that I could appreciate. Somehow, I had the uncanny ability to keep whatever weapon was in my hand…well, in my hand. With Medelia, I had never once dropped the iron poker. With Mr. Farmer, it was my salt gun, still firmly gripped in my fingers. It gave me hope that I wouldn't die a horrible death from dropping my only source of protection at a random, inopportune moment.

Like now. In the space of one ghostly flicker, Mr. Farmer jumped from across the room to towering directly over me. Above my head, there was a sharp cracking noise, and my eyes widened. I exploded into action, tilting my gun upwards and pulling the trigger at the same time I threw my free arm up over my head for protection.

The salt sprayed at him, and he dispersed in wispy shreds of what looked like mist, just like Medelia had when I'd swung the iron poker at her. The shelf above me also crashed down into my raised arm, pelting and slamming me with chunks of wood and shattered glass from the jars that had been sitting on the shelf.

I gritted my teeth, wondering just how bruised I would be tomorrow, and climb out from under the mess. "Stupid redneck farmer," I spat, only half heartedly excited that my salt gun had done a wonderful job. Then I shook my head, realizing the enormity of what had just happened. "Booyah!" I yelled, suddenly extremely pleased with the salt gun's success. Boom! Riley Stewart, master of the salt gun, recipient of the amateur ghost-busting award.

Then, remembering my best friend laying prone in the basement/cellar, I pelted down the stairs to lay down a quick salt ring around Libby. As soon as I had shaken out a solid circle around her, I turned my focus to the house itself.

Humming thoughtfully, I pursed my lips. "It sounds to me as if you started haunting this place when your family sold it. But are you held back by the house, or just something in it?" I spun in a slow circle, frowning. Unfortunately, Mr. Farmer was temporarily banished or whatever happened during being dispersed with salt, so he couldn't tell me.

Truth be told, I just wanted to get Libby out of there and torch the place. Then again, I didn't really plan on adding arson to my currently spotless civilian record. Besides, Sam had said it wouldn't have worked with Medelia, so there was no reason to assume it would work here. All in all, it meant that I had to find whatever was holding Mr. Farmer here with exactly zero shreds of research or foreknowledge. And I had to do without letting him hurt Libby or me.

Awesome.

But really, I had no one but myself to blame. And Libby. I was definitely blaming Libby. I stewed over it for a second before shaking my head. There was no need to blame anyone. That wouldn't help me. What I really needed to do was focus on hashing out a game plan.

I wasn't going to leave Libby's side. That was my first decision. After seeing Medelia blow out the windows of Libby's house, I was no longer under the impression that being inside the circle of salt made us one hundred percent untouchable, which brought me to my second decision.

I wasn't going to hide inside the salt circle with Libby, either. By some weird logic, I figured Mr. Farmer would be more likely to leave the salt intact if there was one of us outside it to mess with. And since Libby was unconscious, I was the only one left to be a ghost-y playtoy. Except I didn't plan on being much fun to play with. I planned to be a pain in the ass, which I figured was more or less my default setting when it came to supernatural creatures.

There was a metal bin in the corner, and I crossed over to it to check what was inside. There were cobwebs and a lot of dust, but not much else. "Perfect," I said, dragging it into the center of the room with my free hand. I kept one eye out for Mr. Farmer and held the salt gun ready at all times as I crossed back and forth through the dingy basement, collecting random items. I threw them all in the metal bin, only taking the time to start the salt-and-burn once there was a nice pile going.

It didn't take more than a few minutes before Mr. Farmer came back. I didn't see him this time, but I certainly knew he was there when the floorboards above me started creaking again. I dove out of the way just as they snapped and came crashing down onto the spot I had just occupied. "Fricking, ghost. You're destroying your own dang house, you loony!" I yelled up at him, hoping he could understand me.

The combination of the boards crashing to the floor and my epic dive to the side made the loose dirt on from the floor fill the air in a thick cloud. I coughed and gagged, spitting out gritty globs of spit. "Nasty," I groused, climbing to my feet. Libby was fine, I noted as I checked over my shoulder, and I knew she was probably in the safest part of the room. Mr. Farmer had already collapsed the boards when she had fallen, so there was nothing above her that could hurl down as a deadly projectile. So at least there was that.

"Okay," I grunted, surveying the burning bin of objects, "so it obviously wasn't any of that stuff. Gosh, why can't there be just a huge neon sign, like, 'here I am, burn _me_!'"

Behind me, more of the ceiling collapsed, and I swung around just in time to catch sight of a denim clad leg near the opening of the new hole. I fired, not really expecting to hit him, and I was right. He was gone before the salt reached him. I narrowed my eyes, realizing that one of the jagged openings was pretty close to my impromptu fire pit. That was good. That was…excellent. I grinned, sprinting for the old staircase as a plan formed in my head.

Mr. Farmer appeared at the top of the stairs, reaching for me, but I blasted him away with salt a split second after he appeared. Maybe I _was_ getting better at this whole Hunting thing. I never slowed my pace, reaching the top of the stairs and bursting out of the doorway to the first floor. Once I was there, I indiscriminately filled my arms with anything not attached to the walls and threw it all down the hole into the burning pile of junk.

I had just collected my fourth armful when Mr. Farmer appeared. I dropped the junk in my arms and took a nervous step away from the hole. A second later, Mr. Farmer started smoldering a little bit, which told me I was on the right track. Something I had thrown into the fire was holding him back, and now that it was starting burning, he was getting a little toasty around the edges.

But, unlike Medelia, he didn't wither away and burst into fiery particles. Why wasn't he fully burning? Why wasn't he gone? I snuck a quick glance down the hole, letting out a pterodactyl-worthy shriek when I saw what was happening.

My last round of flammable materials hadn't quite made it into the metal bin. Instead, some had spilled halfway out, and others lay scattered across the dirt floor. The fire, however, wasn't particularly concerned with staying inside the bin, and it was steadily creeping across the objects, consuming them one by one in its flight to freedom.

Maybe arson _was_ going to be on my civilian record.

The boards under my feet shattered, and suddenly I was falling. My left hand flailed wildly, catching the edge of the floor at the last second. I gasped as sharp shards of board cut into my skin, but I didn't let go. Not right away. Kicking my legs, I angled myself away from the raging fire and tried to drop as far away from it as possible. I plummeted, ridiculously uncoordinated, and crashed into the dirt flooring. I bent my knees and tried to absorb the shock, but it still hurt like crazy. Going down onto my knees and a hand, I paused for a second, gasping and panting. Had I really just done that? That was more agility than I had ever displayed in P.E. during my entire high school career.

The fire kept me from thinking about it for too long, though. It was spreading over a large patch of dirt and now burning some of the fallen boards from the ceiling. I groaned, surging to my feet and stumbling over the stuff. Kicking dirt over the burning objects, I managed to stop the advance of the flames, but the dust and smoke were starting to kill my eyes and throat. I covered my mouth with my sleeve, vaguely noting that my gun was still clutched in my hand.

Maybe that was my superpower, holding onto things in the midst of a potentially fatal experience.

Mr. Farmer appeared again, definitely covered in veins of glowing fire. I fired a round of salt at him, but the burst just pinged against the wall behind him as he flashed out of the way. I yelled in frustration, not able to really form words yet, and spun towards my backpack as I worked through it all mentally.

Mr. Farmer was burning more than before, that much was clear. So that meant whatever was holding him back wasn't one of the things in the metal bin, because there was the same amount of flame as there had been earlier, and his burn rate should have been constant. It also ruled out the objects scattered on the floor, since I had just kicked dirt over most of them and extinguished them. Since it was neither of those options, that left only one possible source of fire to make Mr. Farmer all toasty inside.

I pulled the bottle of lighter fluid and the container of extra salt out from my pack, sprinting two giant steps before dropping to my knees by the burning boards. Pulling my sleeves over my hands and desperately hoping I didn't accidently set my shirt on fire, I dug furiously under and around the boards—partially knocking them aside with more wild courage than I would have thought myself possible of.

Sure enough, a multitude of yellowed bone fragments appeared in the dry dirt. I gagged, hating the fact that I was now unearthing Mr. Farmer's decrepit skeleton, but I didn't stop. When I had cleared a good portion of it, I grabbed the lighter fluid, kicked the burning boards back over the bones, and lit the whole thing up. I also gave the pile a liberal dose of salt, gagging again when the acrid smoke billowed up and assailed my nose. Then, just to be thorough, I gave the boards and bones another splash of lighter fluid.

There was something adversely pleasurable—I realized—about squirting lighter fluid in a neat little stream and watching the flames whoosh higher. I also supposed it was plausible that I was a teensy bit of a pyromaniac. _I'll just add it to the resume_, I thought with a resigned sigh, and then I turned to watch the results of my work.

Mr. Farmer was standing by the ring off salt, as if he had been trying to get to Libby. I gave him a cold look, not even feeling bad when he started yelling in pain and rage. Finally, he burst into a swirling dervish of burning ghost-y pieces, and his voice petered off in a tinny echo. Then he was gone. For good.

I wished I could say the same about the fire that was raging around me. To my left, the boards were still crackling away, and to my right, the metal bin was still hosting a nice bonfire. Struggling to my feet, I kicked dirt over the burning boards. It hurt to move my knees, which I knew was from dropping an entire floor and landing on dirt. Still, it could have been worse. The basement floor could've been concrete or something. Then I would have really been in trouble.

Shuffling towards the bin, I puzzled through the best way to put out the fire. In the end, I pulled a water bottle from my backpack and squirted water over all the main objects that were actively burning. It didn't bring me as much joy as squirting lighter fluid, but at the same time, I was too tired to care.

Once both fires were out, I packed all my stuff away and slung the backpack over my shoulder before hobbling towards Libby. She was still out cold, which was pretty convenient if not utterly typical. I knelt beside her, almost positive that I could hear my knees creaking, and felt for her pulse. It was strong, which was good. I was pretty sure a strong pulse meant there was no internal bleeding or whatnot.

I also checked Libby's neck and spine, not that I knew what I was looking for. Still, everything felt normal, so I figured she was fine. Hooking my arms under her armpits, I started the long, slow journey up the stairs. It took forever, but eventually I managed to drag her all the way out the door and into the grass next to Trevor. Once she was settled, I stepped back, resting my hands on my hips and just trying to breathe.

"Well, this is categorically _not awesome_," I huffed, staring down at my two unconscious friends." My left hand started to sting again, reminding me that I had punctured it pretty badly on the boards, and as I looked down at it, I saw just how dirty I was. My shirt was covered in dirt and ash, and one leg of my jeans had a tear in it. I scowled, because they were my favorite pair of jeans. "Stupid farmer," I muttered yet again.

Luckily, I had an extra shirt in my backpack, and I changed into it quickly, completely self-conscious even though Trevor and Libby were totally out of it. After that, I pulled out some clean rags and used more of my water bottle to clean my face, arms, and hand. My first aid kit didn't have any hydrogen peroxide to disinfect my hand, so I used the little alcohol swabs instead, hissing in pain when the stinging started. My hand would probably need a better cleaning than it got, but that could wait until I was home.

Wrapping my hand in a quick bandage, I started trying to wake Trevor up. Failing that, I tried to wake Libby. Neither of them budged or stirred. "Alright, then, drastic measures," I muttered, digging around in little first aid kit for the one thing Libby hated most—smelling salts. Depressingly enough, it said something about the sheer types of injuries Libby and I—but mostly Libby—had acquired on her adventures when I didn't bother carrying around disinfectant, but I considered smelling salts essential.

Honestly, it was a wonder that Libby didn't have more brain damage at this point. More being the operative word, because I was pretty sure she had brain damage one way or another. Of course, who doesn't say that about their best friend?

Needless to say, Libby and Trevor both woke up pretty quickly after being introduced to the salts. After much mumbling and groaning, I got all three of us in the car. Buckling up, I stuffed the keys into the ignition and drove us out of there.

"What happened?" Libby moaned, rubbing her head with a frown. Brain damage, I knew it. The memory is always first to go.

"You fell through some rotted boards and landed in the basement," I said cheerfully, as if it was no big deal. As if I hadn't seen her limp body and hadn't for one second feared that she was dead.

In the back, Trevor opened his mouth. "What about Trevor?" Libby asked. Trevor closed his mouth.

"You tripped over a board and faceplanted in the grass. Your head must have hit a rock or something, sorry," I said with a sympathetic grimace in the rearview mirror. Trevor shook his head ruefully, examining his camera for damage.

Libby twisted in her seat. "Did you get anything on camera?" She demanded. "They say that ghosts can be seen on camera."

"And just who constitutes as 'they?'" I asked, more than a little curious. I'd never come across anything like that in the short time I'd researched ghosts and spirits. Then again, my research had mostly just constituted as puttering around on the internet in the hour leading up to Libby's emergency best friend sleepover.

"You know…them." Libby waved a dismissive hand at me and waited for Trevor to review his footage.

"Oh, no," she groaned. I tried to hide my smile and only barely succeeded. "Trevor, you must have forgotten to put a memory card in," she said mournfully. Trevor raised his eyebrows and shrugged, less than concerned. Libby sighed. "That's okay, I still like you," she said, patting his knee. A big doofus grin stretched over his face, and he twined his fingers in hers. I rolled my eyes and focused on the road.

In actuality, Trevor hadn't forgotten a memory card. Before replacing the camera in his hand, I had carefully watched everything he had recorded. It wasn't much, but near the end—amidst flickers and static—Libby had fallen through the floor, and there had been a quick flash of blue overalls and a plaid shirt. So I had taken the memory card, leaving Trevor with a blank camera.

I had also confiscated Libby's lock picking kit, citing that it was for her own good. Let her think she lost it when falling through the floor.

It was just another thing I could add to my growing record: theft, perjury, arson, trespassing, and desecration of public property. Yep, I was definitely going to live a colorful life. Who knew Miss Goody-Two-Shoes Riley Stewart was going to be such a criminal?

But as much as I would have liked to gone through life with a clean record, I wanted to help people more. When it came down to it, I would rather break the law than potentially let someone get hurt or die. Which more or less made me a vigilante. Dear Lord. All without having graduated high school yet.

The promise I had given Sam and Dean to try and be normal seemed so pathetic now. I _had_ tried, but it was clear that my life was not going in that particular direction.

Did I see myself as a Hunter? No. But I did see myself in a position to do some good, and that was something I couldn't easily ignore.

So that was me in nutshell—Riley Stewart, partly willing guardian of the Pacific Northwest.

It was all so…typical. Just…typical.


	5. Robby The Weirdo: Part One

A/N: So sorry it has taken me over a week to update! My sister is getting married and everything is crazy all up in here... I also had a really bad case of writer's block, because I am working on a future Riley story, and I couldn't get my mind off that one to focus on this one. The horrors. Anyways, bit of a change up this chapter. :) Totally had to re-watch an old episode as "research." Best research I've ever done.

If you feel like it, drop me a review. I love hearing what you guys think!

* * *

I was beginning to think of myself as a ghost aficionado, which was probably why karma decided to turn around and kick me in the face.

Actually, that was a lie. I didn't believe in karma.

I still got kicked in the face, though…literally. And it didn't even have to do anything with ghosts.

Actually, that was another lie. The whole thing technically started when I killed my sixth spirit—my fourth since graduating high school.

It was a typical salt-and-burn and didn't take me more than a couple days work in Royal City, Washington. Mamacita Ghost hadn't able to stick around after I'd torched her favorite rocking chair.

The case had started out kind of tricky, because I hadn't been able to see the connections between the three victims. Then, once I'd visited two of the crime scenes and positively identified a singular rocking chair at both of them, I'd put the pieces together.

The best part was that I hadn't even needed to steal the chair. I'd bought it at the storage unit sale for seven dollars. Not only had I proved my small-town garage sale haggling prowess, I'd both procured the dang rocking chair and burnt it while managing to remain an upstanding citizen. I hadn't even minded when Mamacita ghost had appeared and had tried to crush my skull with said rocking chair.

It was quite exciting, working within the law again. Quite exciting indeed.

After torching the chair, I'd packed up my stuff and ditched town, which was the terse way of saying "set my backpack in passenger seat of my car and respectfully navigated through traffic." Same difference, more or less.

Actually, it was the same backpack I'd once considered to be my Libby Adventure Survival Kit. Only now that I was no longer hanging out with Libby on a daily basis, it had been repurposed to tote around my Hunting gear—less of a goofy friend vibe and more of a subtle lethality. If the authorities ever got their hands on it, though, I would be in for some serious questioning. So these days I tended to follow all the boring, little laws and keep my head down.

Take now, for instance. I was sitting at a four way stop, politely waiting my turn while the other car went. Then I carefully checked all directions before preparing to drive across the intersection. I even double checked as I started to go. The only direction I didn't check was behind me, which, of course, is where the trouble decided to come from. Typical Riley luck.

There was a loud crunch and a massive jerk, causing my head to snap back against my seat rest. I let out a small, startled yell and immediately twisted in my seat to see who had rear ended me. It was a silver minivan, and my angry retort died on my lips when I saw the driver was slumped over the steering wheel. Crap.

Shutting the car off, I clicked my seatbelt open and got out. My neck was a little stiff, but I didn't care. The other driver still wasn't moving, which struck me as way worse than a stiff neck. I hustled over to the driver side door and opened it. Long blond hair obscured my first look at the driver, but her face become clear when she lifted her head and shook it slightly in groggy confusion.

She looked extremely…drained. Her eyes were dazed, and it seemed like she barely had enough energy to even lift her head. Her skin was pale and drawn, not to mention kind of sweaty—the kind of sweaty that came with being perpetually ill for a period of time. "Are you okay? Are you hurt?" I asked, putting a hand on her shoulder.

"I'm…so sorry…I don't know…what happened," she murmured, taking breaks throughout the sentence as she gathered her breath. I waited patiently, trying to see if she was hurt in any other way than being disorientated.

"I'm okay, and I think you only dinged my car. It's totally had worse," I said with a smile, and she gave a weak smile back.

I wasn't even lying. During my high school graduation party two months ago, Jake had tried to show me that he could build a skateboard ramp with the correct angle to propel himself over the trunk of my car and down a ramp on the other side. I had foolishly allowed him to try and had readily discovered just how bad at math and calculations Jake was.

After his epic crash, I had succinctly told him that he should under no circumstances become an engineer and had left it at that. The damage he had done to my car was ridiculous, though, and it was still there—scrapes, dents, and chipped paint all the way across the lid of my trunk. My parents had thought it looked garish, but I had thought it gave my little car character. I still did.

Plus, the only new damage from the lady's van was a bit of crumpling of the fender on the right side. It went right along Jake's wear-and-tear, and I was probably going to keep it until my car decided to die an old and peaceful death. Or so I hoped. Old and peaceful were looking kind of overly optimistic as my chosen adjectives.

But it didn't matter. I was more concerned with helping the lady out than suing the crap out of her over a stiff neck and a crumpled fender. I started by helping her lean backwards, which definitely eased her breathing more. Then, glancing behind her, I saw she had a little boy, maybe seven or eight years old. He was just sitting in his booster seat, staring. I gave him a reassuring smile, but he gazed back at me blankly. "Mommy? I'm hungry," he said, somewhat petulantly. "I'm hungry, Mommy." Little brat.

I disregarded him for a second, turning my attention back to the lady. "Better?" I asked, keeping my hand on her shoulder. I think it was comforting for her, because she was honestly more relaxed than before.

She nodded, closing her eyes for a second. "I just got really dizzy, and suddenly I wasn't in control. I'm so sorry." There was a large bruise on her forehead, and I guessed that it was from her hitting her head on the steering wheel when she ran into me. So now she had a possible concussion along with being very obviously sick—definitely a rough day for her, poor lady.

I shook my head before realizing she couldn't see it with her eyes closed. "Don't worry about it," I said sincerely. "Can you tell me your name?" Aaron and Neal had played football long enough to garner a few concussions along the way, and I had thoroughly researched concussions back when Libby had gotten her first one, so I was pretty confident I would be able to spot if this lady was concussed or not.

"Tracy McCabe," she said without much pause. That was good. Memory retrieval was usually slow or sometimes faulty with a concussion.

"Okay, Tracy, can you tell me your address?" Occasionally people could come up with their name regardless of a concussion. But things like addresses or what they had for breakfast were a little harder.

"1326 Starcrest Lane," she said, opening her eyes. They were both equally dilated, which was also good.

I gave her a reassuring smile. "Great. Are you feeling any nausea or sensitivity to light?"

She shook her head. "No, I'm just a little tired. I swear I wasn't this tired when I started driving." Probably not concussed, I decided, but that didn't mean she was completely fine.

I stepped back and chewed on my lip thoughtfully. We were blocking the intersection, but no other cars were coming. Still, we would need to move soon, and I didn't really feel like Tracy should be driving in her condition.

I glanced around, tapping my thumb against the hood of her car as I pondered our options. Thankfully, there was a parking lot not twenty feet away. It was pay parking, but a dollar was worth being able to help this lady. I turned back to Tracy, working my way up to a "no nonsense" tone of voice. "Alright, Tracy, I'm going to go park my car in that parking lot over there, and then I'm going to come drive you home, okay?"

"No, I couldn't possibly let you do that," she said, but it was only token politeness. She knew she was in no shape to drive, and she knew that I knew it too. Her face crumpled a little, and she looked like she was about to cry, so I tried to head it off at the pass.

"It's no problem," I told her. "I actually just finished up with a job, so I have some free time. Plus, I can't—in good conscience—let you drive in your condition. Don't worry about it. I'll be right back."

She dropped her head back against head rest and nodded. I moved away and then jogged to my car, climbing back in and starting it again. Then, true to my word, I pulled around the corner, paid for parking, and jogged back to Tracy's van.

Tracy was just climbing out when I got back, and I took one of her arms, slowly escorting her to the passenger side. As we went around the front of the car, I noted that her van had definitely gotten the better end of the deal. There was barely a scratch on it while my car had a crumpled fender. Shaking my head and rolling my eyes, I tried to banish my irritation in regards to my ridiculous brand of luck. Anti-luck, really, if I was being honest. I was definitely the opposite of lucky.

When we finally reached the passenger side door, I opened it and helped Tracy slowly climb in. As she did, her hair brushed aside, and I noticed a weird bruise on the back of her neck. Closing her door with a frown, I crossed back in front of the car and pondered if she could have gotten that from our collision. The bruise didn't look super fresh, but that didn't mean much. Bruises were always different. At least for me they were. Still, I couldn't imagine how she'd have gotten one right dead center of the back of her neck like that.

"Thank you for doing this," Tracy said tiredly. "I don't know what's wrong with me. I've never felt like this before."

"No problem," I said, sliding in behind the wheel and moving the seat back a little. "Hey, are you sure you don't want to go to the doctor or something?"

"No, I just need to get some sleep." I glanced over at her, not very convinced, but it wasn't like I could force her to do anything she didn't want to. Especially when there was a kid in the mix.

"Alright then, home it is. Just tell me where to go," I said cheerfully. Tracy fed me instructions, and I followed them as best I could. It was a little hard because I wasn't completely used to driving in a place with so much traffic, but I got through it. Although, when some guy cut me off and then flipped me off like it was my fault, I almost yelled a rude word at him. Tracy took care of it for me, though, and then she pulled up short, as if realizing what she'd just yelled in front of the random stranger who was driving her car. We made awkward eye contact with each other, and then both of us laughed.

A few seconds later, we quieted. I snorted again to myself, still finding it funny. I was about to say so when the kid in the back cut in.

"Mommy, I'm hungry. I want pizza and ice cream," he said, almost demandingly. I swear, if he could have stomped a foot, he would have right then and there.

"Okay, we'll have some when we get home, Robby," Tracy replied tiredly. She sounded exhausted. Gone was the laughter and gone was the mirth. Her voice was just flat and tired. I glanced in the rearview mirror at Robby for a second, narrowing my eyes at his total obliviousness. Couldn't he see his mom wasn't feeling good?

He stared back at me, meeting my eyes with brazen apathy. I looked back at the road, my mouth turning down in distaste. "Cute kid," I said, glancing over again at Tracy. I was totally lying, though. Robby was not cute, he was full-on creepy. Well, that wasn't totally true. He was cute enough, really. But the way he talked—the way he looked at Tracy and I—was downright weird. I couldn't put my finger on it, but it was just…weird.

"Thanks." Tracy's face was blank as she said it and her voice flat, which confused me. Did she somehow sense that I didn't really mean it? Why was she laughing and smiling one minute and then seemingly kind of numb in the next. "Turn left here," she said, just as flatly, pointing to a nice neighborhood on a cul-de-sac.

I clicked my turn signal on and glanced in the rearview mirror, checking for cars behind me. There were none, but what I did see caused me to do a double take.

Robby wasn't Robby in the mirror; he had changed. Instead of being a normal kid, the thing reflected back at me was not human. Its skin was pale and kind of white-translucent. Dark holes gaped where Robby's eyes should have been, and he only had two nostril slits for a nose—rather like Voldemort, I noted. The worst, though, was probably his mouth. Gone were the petulant little lips. Instead, there was a perfectly round funnel-like cavity, lined with oddly pink skin and sharp teeth.

My eyes got wide, and my mouth twisted in revulsion as I stared. Then, after flicking my gaze back to the road for a second and making the turn, I twisted in my seat to look back at Robby only to find he looked like a normal kid again. Worse still, he was staring back at me. No words, no emotion—just staring.

My heart started pounding, my hands tightening on the wheel of their own accord. _Monster, monster, monster_, chanted the voice in the back of my head. I forced myself to smile at him in the mirror, even though I could still see his horrifying reflection, and then I focused on pulling into the driveway to which Tracy was indicating.

Here I was crisscrossing states to search out ghosts and spirits, when I get into a random car and somehow run into a monster that I have no clue about. Good Lord, people randomly struck by lightning had to have better luck than me.

"Thank you so much for driving," Tracy said, both sincerity and some life back in her voice. "I'll call you a cab."

"Yeah, okay," I said back, kind of lost in my own slightly terrified thoughts.

Robby wasn't human. Robby was a monster, and I was supposed to be the one that took care of monsters. Oh no. Was I eventually going to have to kill this woman's son—or what she thought was her son—while she watched? Was I seriously going to have to kill this thing that looked like a little boy? I didn't know if I could. Not when he looked human. Not when he looked like a little kid.

I turned off the car and climbed out. Tracy got out as well, seemingly stronger and more energized than she had been right after the crash. She unbuckled Robby and helped him out of his booster seat. After giving me money for the cab, they walked up the driveway and into the house with a wave. Well, Tracy waved. Robby just trailed after her, holding her hand but staring back at me over his shoulder as they walked. It was bizarre and more than a little creepy.

Robby wasn't human. Was Tracy? Yes, I decided. Her reflection had never changed. But did she know what he was? Her response when I had mentioned Robby made more sense now. Did she somehow know that something wasn't quite right with him?

I thought back, picturing the weird, round bruise on her neck. That hadn't been from the crash. That had to have been from something else. Oh, gosh. Faux Robby's mouth had been a circle. A circle full of weird-ass teeth and pink skin, like a sucker. A sucker about the approximate size of the bruise.

The cab pulled up. I climbed into it numbly, with what I'm sure was a horrified, unsettled look on my face. The cabbie leered at me. "Jeez, lady, no need to be all rude about it. I know the upholstery needs work, but at least try and mask your high and mighty superiority," he said, chomping on some gum.

I frowned, chewing on my lip. "What?" I murmured, not even paying attention to the cabbie's words.

"Where to?" He asked rudely, jolting me back to reality for a second.

"Uh, intersection of Fifth and Pike," I said, staring out the window towards Tracy's house. I couldn't see them, but I could only imagine what was happening inside. Actually, I couldn't imagine it at all, which was almost worse. Robby was a monster. What kind of monster, I didn't know. What he could be doing to Tracy, I didn't know either.

Ghosts, spirits, were easy. They were already dead. They'd had their chance at life and had died. If they were still here, then it was my job to help them move on—albeit sometimes forcefully and against their will. It was for the best, simple as that. They weren't supposed to still be here, and I rectified that. Almost like restoring the balance.

But this? This was a whole new ballgame. Whatever Robby was, it clearly wasn't human. Did that mean he deserved to die, though? Was being a monster an automatic death warrant? I didn't know. Sam and Dean might know. They dealt with this stuff all the time. But I didn't want to call them, didn't want to be the wimp that came scuttling back to them every time I ran into something new.

"You getting out or what?" The cabbie broke me out of my thoughts with a well-timed grunt.

"Oh, uh, yeah. Sorry," I said, fumbling for the cash that Tracy had given me. The meter was only fifteen cents shy of bill in my hand, so I handed the whole thing to him. "Keep the change."

"Yeah, thanks. You're a real philanthropist," he grumbled, pulling away.

I turned away from the street, pulling my keys from my pocket and walking down the sidewalk towards the parking lot. My phone rang, then, keeping me from submerging back into my darker thoughts. It was Libby, and despite my situation, I couldn't help but grin as I picked up.

"Hey, lady!" I said excitedly.

"Hey, yourself," Libby said back cheerfully. "Just wanted to call and see how your epic journey of self-discovery was going. You know, classes start in like two weeks. Your parents are starting to worry that you've self-discovered your way out of the whole college thing." Which was Libby-speak for "come back now before your parents send out search-and-rescue."

"Yeah," I said quietly. "Tell them not to worry. The college thing is still on. I just needed some time, you know?" In truth, I hadn't self-mandated a roadtrip for myself because I was unsure about where my life was going, which is what I'd told my parents—hence Libby's label of self-discovery. Well, it hadn't been _completely_ about that. No, I had called it because I couldn't make it up to Washington and back in a socially acceptable timeframe. Mamacita Ghost had taken me three days of work to puzzle through, and now there was this Robby thing. So my roadtrip was the perfect excuse to putter around by myself and discover who I was. At least from everyone else's point of views. My Hunting really had nothing to do with an existential crisis, but whatever got me where I needed to be.

"I'm fine, Lib. Really. Just working through some stuff." I climbed into my car and sat in the driver's seat for a moment before inserting the key into the ignition.

"I know you are," she said, one hundred percent loyal friend. "I'll hold them off for another week. Any longer than that and it's out of my hands."

"You're the best," I told her, absolutely meaning it.

"I know that, too," she said, and I could practically hear her familiar Libby grin in those words. I grinned in return and hung up, tossing the phone into the passenger seat. Laying my left arm along the window seal, I rubbed my forehead with a finger and thumb, thoughtful.

I needed to go home. But I needed to take care of this Robby thing first. I would never be able to sleep knowing what I'd seen and knowing I'd done nothing about it. I might not know what Robby was, but I could find out. And when I did, well…then I could decide what to do about him. It. Whatever he was.

And who knew? Maybe I wouldn't have to kill him. Maybe he was just a baby monster in need of a home. Maybe he wasn't going to go all crazy and kill Tracy. Maybe the roundness of his mouth and the weird bruise on the back of her neck were complete coincidence.

"Yeah," I said with a depressed snort, "maybe."


	6. Robby The Weirdo: Part Two

A/N: Whew! Wedding shenanigans are over, toast is delivered, and I am free to write! Don't know why I felt the need to procrastinate all my day-of Maid of Honor duties until the night before the wedding. Oh, wait...it's because I procrastinate with everything. Anyways. New chapter! I already have the next one written (mostly). Yay.

* * *

I got back to my motel room and tossed my keys on the lamp stand. Then I sank down on the edge of the single bed and dropped my head into my hands.

Had my life seriously come to this? Contemplating whether or not I would have to kill something. The last time I'd had to make this particular decision was when I'd seen a giant spider on my ceiling. But there was big difference between deciding to fling a Nerf battle axe at a spider and figuring out if I should kill the thing that was someone's son. Big difference indeed.

Was I a killer? I mean, when I forced ghost to move on, they were already dead. So it wasn't really killing them. And the whole vampire fiasco… I hadn't actually killed one. Sam and Dean had taken care of them. So could I kill now? I didn't know. I might just be making something out of nothing, though. I might not have to kill, depending on what my research turned up, which reminded me that Faux Robby wasn't going to research himself.

Booting up my laptop for a power session of perusing and reading, I pulled out a banana and a small bag of peanut M&M's. With them, I considered myself crossing two food groups off the ideal meal plan at once. Who says dinner can't be fun? Hunkering down in the shoddy wooden chair provided by the motel, I popped a blue M&M into my mouth and started typing.

I opened a browser page to Google, which I figured was the best starting point a girl could get, and my first search criteria was something random along the lines of "child monster with sucker on face." Strangely enough, Kanye West lyrics popped up as the first hit, and I scowled, wondering what American music was coming to. After that, I found a few random sites about chupacabras, but being dog-like and sucking the blood of goats didn't seem like Faux Robby's thing.

The next things I looked at were certain characteristics of Faux Robby's face. The eyes and nose were completely unhelpful, but I did find something interesting about his mouth. The closest approximation Faux Robby had to anything living was a lamprey, which was a disgusting slug-like creature that had an almost exact replica of Faux Robby's mouth. Same funnel-like mouth and same toothy sucker. It was eerie, and I couldn't help my mouth twisting in revulsion as I looked at picture after picture of lampreys. Them things were nasty.

However, I did not suspect that Faux Robby was some kind of were-lamprey, which meant I needed to approach the problem from a different angle. I sat back, cocking my head to the side and rubbing the underside of my chin as I worked through what I knew. Faux Robby had a mouth like a lamprey, which meant it was most likely for sucking. So what did he suck? The bruise had been at the back of Tracy's neck—almost dead center. What was in that spot that could be sucked up besides blood?

I Googled it and came up with two options. At the back of the neck like that, Faux Robby was most likely after either Cerebrospinal fluid or joint fluid. I was leaning towards cerebrospinal fluid, so I looked up the symptoms of CSF loss. They were plentiful and awful, and I dearly hoped that I never leaked any cerebrospinal fluid at any point in my life. The biggest symptoms were a severe headache, dizziness, facial numbness, blurry or double vision, and nausea. None of which Tracy seemed particularly afflicted with.

Loss of joint fluid, which was also known as synovial fluid, presented as fatigue, stiffness, mild fever, loss of appetite and weight loss, and changes in skin or nails. Which pretty much described Tracy to a T.

So Faux Robby was after Tracy's synovial fluid. Once I narrowed down Faux Robby's actual target, it was simply a matter of changing up the words in my search entry to find out what he was. Sure enough, six search pages later, I clicked on a website that named Robby as a changeling.

In fact, because I already knew several things about Faux Robby, it was fairly easy to discard the loads of bogus information out there. I had once questioned Sam on how he knew actual mythology from all the pseudo pop-culture garbage. Now I knew.

Four hours later, I leaned back, rubbing my tired eyes. I had narrowed my research down to three of what I considered to be the most reliable websites. They didn't have any embellishment or gaudy mysticism on them at all. What they did have were pictures of old books and documents. Even better, one of the neatly printed texts was accompanied by a rough sketch of what I'd seen in the mirror. Oh yeah, jackpot.

According to the research, Faux Robby was not a fairy changeling simply swapping places with the real Robby for the sake of mischievous pleasure. Furthermore, Faux Robby was not going to be taken care of by returning the real Robby or scared off by seeing its reflection of a twice-cursed mirror. That was all fairy tale nonsense.

No, Faux Robby was a parasite. He had swapped the real Robby and was now slowly draining Tracy's synovial fluid while Robby was possibly being snacked on what was called a "mother changeling." I didn't have to be a genius to figure out what would happen when either Tracy or Robby wasn't able to produce enough synovial fluid to replace the amount they were losing.

Which meant that I was probably going to have to kill Faux Robby. And the mother changeling, when I found her.

Fire. All three sites confirmed that fire was the way to kill changelings. I didn't know if I felt better or worse about that. On one hand, I was comfortable with setting fires—as horrible as that sounded—because of all the salting and burning ghost-y remains that I'd done. On the other hand, burning old bones and haunted objects was a lot different from torching a living thing. Willingly setting something alive on fire seemed brutal and monstrous, in and of itself.

The thing that really bugged me, though, was that it all seemed so unaccountable—what with me having the power to decide which mother-son duo I was going to let live. No one else knew about this, and no one was going to stop me. It felt vaguely serial killer-y, like I was living in my own little world where the only things keeping me in line were my own self-constructed morals. Like I was playing God. And it felt wrong.

Tracy and Robby versus mother changeling and child changeling. It was all very bizarre that _I_ was the one "in charge" of this conundrum. Who was I to decide? But at the same time, one of those things was not like the other. One pair was preying on and draining the life from the other. And that felt wrong, too.

I shut my laptop lid with a snap and shoved the whole thing away from me, slumping forward on the table and pillowing my head in my arms.

What in the name of sanity had I been thinking getting into this Hunting thing? Hadn't I always known it would come to this? It's not like I could have gone on taking care of spirits forever without running into something else. I had already kind of known that starting out, but gosh, why had no one tried to stop me? Why hadn't I stopped myself?

I let out a slightly erratic giggle. Sam and Dean had tried to stop me. They had repeatedly warned me that this wasn't a good life to get into, and here I was, finally realizing why people in this lifestyle had garnered the nickname "Hunters." In a Hunter's lifestyle, finding the monster was only half the gig. Actually killing the monster was the other half. It wasn't like the monsters just took care of themselves. Apparently, I had slightly ignored that little fact during my ghost-busting tour.

Good Lord, I had brought it on myself. I was going to have to kill the changelings, because there was no way I was just going to leave Tracy and Robby to fend for themselves. I thought about Tracy's weak and sickly appearance. And the fact that somewhere out there was a probably terrified little boy, lost and alone with the same thing that had kidnapped him.

I wasn't the monster—the problem—here. I was the solution.

My mouth turned down in a resolute frown. I would do this. I would do it for Tracy and for Robby. I would do it because there was no one else who would—who could. _Maybe_ other Hunters would come, and _maybe_ they would be able to take care of it, but not without a body trail to tip them off. And I wasn't going to let Tracy and Robby die just because I wasn't willing to buckle down and kill the changelings.

So I would do this. I would do it, because if I didn't, then two—and maybe more—people were going to die. Two harmless, innocent people and it would be my fault. Sam and Dean had gone to bat for me once, and now…now it was my turn to pay it forward.

Sitting back up, mental resolution giving me strength, I pulled my laptop back towards me and pushed the lid open. The second "reliable" website had mentioned the mother changeling the most frequently. It claimed that mother changelings tended to store the victims underground—whatever that meant—while the child changelings impersonated the real children.

I pulled up a map of the town and searched for any underground structures near the McCabe house. There were no construction sites, no old bunkers, no anything, anywhere near the house. I sat back, puzzled, and tried to think of any other underground possibilities. The only thing I could think of was the sewer, and that freaked me out even more than the thought of having to actively search out a parasitic killer.

Even weirded out, I had to be thorough, so I searched town archives for a diagram of the sewer lines. It took some digging, and more than an hour of navigating around some annoying government blocks, but I eventually found an ancient blueprint. The whole process would have gone much quicker if I was a hacker, but even now, I only considered myself competent to even type more than forty-five words per minute. So, hacking was definitely not even a realistic possibility for me. More like a pipe dream.

Still, finding the old blueprints was kind of a breakthrough for me. Or the opposite of a breakthrough, really. There were no sewer lines big enough to walk through near or around Tracy's house, which meant I had pretty much just wasted an hour and that I was basically back at square one. But it also meant that I wasn't going to have to run around in the sewer for the night, and for that I was totally willing to trade an hour of my time.

In the end, it was thinking about Libby that got the ball rolling. While randomly following the sewer lines with my eyes, I noticed a middle school on the map. It was old, old enough to have been built back in seventies. Before Eagle Point Middle School—which is where Libby and I had gone—had been rebuilt in two thousand four, it had been almost as old as the middle school on the map.

Although Libby and I had been too young to go to the old middle school, pretty much every kid knew the stories about the old, abandoned bomb shelter in the basement of the school. Plus, Aaron and Neal—who had gone to the old school—used to tell Libby and I about the time when Mrs. Lorren opened the hatch in the floor during reading time to show the class the entrance.

We must have heard that story a dozen times, and each time, Libby and I had built blanket forts in our rooms and then pretended we were sneaking around in the bomb shelter of the old school. In fact, it was those memories that got me on track with comparing the years the middle schools were built. As it turned out, they were built within three years of each other.

So it was possible, very possible, that the middle school on the map had a bomb shelter constructed into it as well. Further research neither confirmed nor denied my hypothesis, but I did turn up something interesting. The school was currently in the midst of a remodel, but the place had been relatively abandoned for the last few weeks due to a construction company issue. It wasn't super close to Tracy's house, but it was close enough—closer than anything else that could be considered "underground." And the timeline seemed to be about right, more or less.

Two weeks was enough time for the changelings to set up shop. It was enough time to put Tracy into an unhealthy downwards spiral.

Two weeks.

I leaned back, feeling cold. Two weeks was enough time to drain a kid.

Robby wouldn't have as much synovial fluid as Tracy, and if she was in bad shape, then he could be…

Robby could be dead by now, for all I knew. Robby could be dead, and no one besides me would be any the wiser.

I shook my head and stood quickly, swaying slightly as blood rushed to my head and made me dizzy. No, he wasn't dead. He wasn't. Two weeks was a rough estimate, not an actual timeline. He wasn't dead, and I was going to save him. That was final. But first…first I needed fire.

The lighter fluid bottle in my pack wasn't going to be enough. I needed major flames. Fortunately, growing up with three brothers, that wasn't an issue. I had seen it all: everything from lighting farts on fire to filling squirt guns with pilfered lawnmower gasoline. But what I had in mind now was a bit more subtle. It was something I'd seen Jake do on numerous occasions, and I had a feeling that it would suit my purpose just fine.

What I had in mind was easy and simple. All I needed was a lighter and some hairspray. The flames created by burning the propellants weren't particularly hot or volatile, not like with lighter fluid, but they were still flames. Only, when coming out of a spray can, they were controllable and somewhat easily manipulated. Plus, there was the added bonus that I probably wouldn't accidentally singe my eyebrows off.

Singed eyebrows was another thing I'd seen far too often with my brothers. In fact, if Aaron hadn't been working towards becoming a chemist and Neal a fireman, then I seriously would have worried that my family was made of pyromaniacs. Blood related or not, we all seemed to share a penchant for fire, and even though we were all working towards day-to-day constructive uses of combustion—if such thing existed—I still sometimes worried that one or more of us would end up in the papers one day.

But that wasn't important right now. What was important was gathering my supplies and finding Robby. I grabbed my pack and my keys off the lamp stand, loss of daylight and fear for Robby lending speed to my movements. As I jogged out to my car, I mentally categorized what I need to do. One, obtain several cans of hairspray and a couple back-up lighters. Two, locate and break into the school building site. Three, take out the mother changeling and rescue Robby. Four, take out Faux Robby and rescue Tracy. Boom, nailed it.

I threw my car into gear and left the motel in search of the nearest store. I found one easily, splurging on the good hairspray using the money that my vampire father's inheritance had left me. I continued to vaguely suspect that my current fortune had originally been procured from a great many illegal activities, so it presented itself as weird symmetry to me that I was using it for—albeit much different and better—illegal activities. Whatever.

Unwilling to look like a delinquent with the base purchase of hairspray and lighters, I added a bag of gummy bears and a new hairbrush to throw the cashier off the scent of my questionable activity. I think it worked, because she just bagged my purchases and sent me on my way—never asking why someone would need three entire cans of hairspray. Maybe she hadn't grown up with crazy brothers, or maybe she just didn't care. Either way, I walked out of the store as just another ordinary customer and headed out for the school.

It was just starting to get dark when I pulled up behind the heavy chain link fence around the construction site. Aware that there were possibly security cameras all around, I both parked behind one of the massive green dumpsters and made sure that the car was obscured from all major angles. My backpack didn't have any identifying logos, and my clothes were all dark and bland. If, for any reason, someone looked at the footage of the potential cameras, they wouldn't see my car or anything to help distinguish me from any other random person.

It was all very criminal of me, and as I pulled my hoodie strings tight, I worried that I was becoming a little too well-adjusted to this lifestyle. That, combined with my continued mixed martial arts lessons, made me a very curious study. But Jake used to joke that it's only illegal if you get caught, so I figured I was doing pretty good. Keep my head down and give no one a reason to look into me—that was my philosophy. My other philosophy was to hope for the best and prepare for the worst.

Which is why my backpack had three cans of hairspray and at least four different lighters.

Slipping in between the two gates that were supposed to be chained tightly shut, I scouted the area around the construction site. One half of the school was intact, not yet reached by the construction crew. The other was standing in bits and pieces. A wall here, a bare strip of foundation there…

It took a few minutes of walking around, but eventually I found what I was looking for. Steps. They were concrete and from the fading light I could tell they were old. Cobwebs and dirt layered them. The best thing about loose dirt, though, was that it left footprints. And right now, the prints I was seeing were telling me a very distinct story.

There were two sizes that I could see. One was bigger than the other, and the bigger footprints were just about the same size as my mine. The mother changeling, then, and she couldn't be that much bigger than me, which was good. The smaller ones were more erratic, and some were scuffed while others were partial prints. A struggling kid, which I guessed was probably Robby. Good for him, putting up a fight.

I knelt at the top of the stairs, pulling my backpack off and setting it at my feet. Taking out two cans of spray and two lighters, I set them all in the dirt in front of me. Then I pulled the lids of the two cans and tested that both sprayed well. They did. Tossing the lids into my backpack, I tested the lighters next. I flicked both with my thumb, checking to see that I could easily form a flame. I could.

Zipping up my pack, I put it on my back and stowed the extra lighter and can of hairspray in the pockets of my cargo pants, worn specifically for this purpose. Then I picked up the other can of hairspray in my right hand and held the other lighter in my left. I was ready, so without any further fanfare or nervous buildup, I ventured down the steps into darkness.


	7. Robby The Weirdo: Part Three

A/N: Does anyone even read these? :) Drop me a review if convenient. If inconvenient, review anyway. :P Thanks for reading!

* * *

Not being a complete idiot, I walked as quietly as possible down the steps and paused at the bottom to allow my eyes to adjust to the dark. I had originally thought about bringing a flashlight, but I felt like that would just broadcast my position to the changeling even more, and it would also bind up my hands when I wanted to keep the ability to make fire my first priority.

So into the darkness I traveled, creeping along with what felt like ninja stealth. It didn't take long, though, to realize that the bomb shelter was utterly secure and dark. There was absolutely no ambient light, which I supposed was the point, but it also meant that I basically blind. I was definitely going to need light if I wanted to make it out of this in one piece.

I crouched down, listening for any sound of movement as I pulled a headlamp out of the side pocket of my pack. Slipping it on, I took a deep breath and clicked the button. Light flared, cutting through the inky darkness with ease. _Well, here I am_, I thought, _might as well come at me, lady_. It felt incredibly awkward to announce my position like that, but I needed to see, and really, maybe it wasn't a terrible thing to speed up the whole "find each other and fight" thing.

The shelter was a rectangle, filled with support beams and cubicle type walls made of concrete. It was a little disconcerting because Robby or the mother changeling could be hidden behind any one of them. But structurally, I guess it made sense.

Sweeping the light across the room, I hated the way that as soon as I moved the light, the area I had been looking at faded back into the unknown darkness. She could be anywhere. She could be sneaking up on me right now, and I wouldn't even know it. I took a slow breath and calmed my nerves, standing ready and alert. _Breathe, listen,_ I told myself, _you'll probably hear her before you see her_.

I didn't.

What I did hear was a tiny whimper. Robby. Not dead, not drained, Robby. I didn't follow the noise, though. I'd seen enough movies where the rescuer rushes right towards the victim only to have the bad guy step out from behind. So pushing the compassionate urge to find and comfort Robby aside, I continued to listen and wait.

The need to check behind me hit so strongly that I actually did. Even as I turned, a foot came out of nowhere and slammed into my thigh. It caused an instant dead leg, and I fell to one knee, strangling a swear word that was trying to slip out. A sneaker flashed into my wide beam of light, this time aimed at my head—which was conveniently lit up as the perfect target by the headlamp. I dropped the can of hairspray and slammed my forearm sideways at the oncoming foot, knocking it aside. Although my grip didn't slow the momentum of the kick, it did direct it out over my shoulder so that it only mildly clipped my jaw. It hurt like crazy, but I lunged forward anyway, awkwardly pushing off with a one-legged drive and catching the lady around the waist. She fell backwards as I crashed into her, and we both hit the ground in a puff of dirt.

We scuffled for a second as I lay on top of her, and an elbow came up, bashing my nose. I let out a yelp and rolled like a log two or three times to get away, instantly blind as my eyes watered up. Gosh dang did that hurt. Blood dripped from my nose, but I ignored it, scrabbling down the leg of my pants for my back-up can of spray. My head lamp had fallen off during one of my rolls, but I didn't need it. I knew what was going to happen, and I was going to be ready for it regardless of the tears in my eyes.

Using the lighter still clutched in my left hand, I drew the spray can out of my pocket, pressed down on the sprayer, and lit the place up. As soon as the hairspray plumed into the air, I touched the flicker of flame to the mist, and wild flames billowed forward. I dragged the can back and forth in the air, directing the spout of flames in every direction away from me in hopes of scoring a hit. The changeling didn't have enough time to backpedal away from me in her vengeful attempt to finish me off, and she screamed, not unlike the spirits I had dealt with. I concentrated the flame at her freshly illuminated form, coming up on one knee as I extended the can and lighter.

With one further billow of flames, the mother changeling burnt up and exploded into black shreds of smoke. I stared at the empty space, kind of dumbfounded, with what I'm sure was a stupid expression. It was over. "Oh," was the only word I could muster. I was still shaking with adrenaline, and my jaw was throbbing. It didn't feel over, but it was. How anticlimactic.

In the background, Robby was crying. I struggled to my feet, painfully massaging my left thigh and trying to get the dead leg to fade. "I'm coming, buddy. I'm coming," I huffed, still reeling a little over the abruptness of the fight. I walked around with a weird shuffling hop, using my hands to drag my nonconformist leg along. "Holy crap," I complained, in pain and frustration, as I hopped over to the fallen headlamp and scooped it up. The mother changeling had only kicked me once, with a sneaker no less, but it felt like my leg was literally dead. Except for the pain, that part I felt.

I put the lighter and hairspray in my pockets, looping the strap of the headlamp around my hand as I worked to pinpoint the direction from which the muffled sobs were coming from. Garnering the general direction, I extended my hand with the light on it and moved it around, searching for any sign of a crying kid. It made me feel like Iron Man, but I pushed that thought aside and focused on what was important.

Robby in one of the many concrete cubicles, and it only took me three tries to find the right one. He was tied to a chair—a piece of duct tape over his mouth—and went deathly quiet as I shambled up to him. "Hi," I said, nearly breathless, as I propped myself up using the wall. Robby's eyes went wide with fear, and I didn't blame him. All he could see was blinding light being pointed at him.

I tilted my palm and shone the light up at my face, which in hindsight wasn't the best idea. My nose was still bleeding, and I'd forgotten that blood was dripping down my chin at that point. Robby let out a scared whimper, and I turned the light away from myself. "It's okay. It's just blood," I said, before realizing how _not_ comforting that statement was. Robby shook his head, struggling against the ropes, and I scoffed at myself, trying again. "The bad lady just punched me in the nose," I explained. "But you don't have to worry about her anymore. I…made her go away."

Robby seemed to relax a bit, and I took that as a good sign. "Okay. I'm going to come untie you, yeah? Then I'll take you home." I hopped over to him, opting to struggle with the ropes instead of pulling out my knife, even though a knife would have made things easier. The kid was traumatized enough as it was. There was no need to bring pointy weapons into the mix.

After cutting his ropes, I eased the duct tape off his mouth, half expecting him to scream or cry or something. He was silent, which I felt was better for the both of us anyway. "Alright, dude. Let's blow this popsicle stand." I extended my hand, and he took it.

Robby and I made our way out of the basement pretty quickly considering that one of us was a gimp and the other was severely dehydrated and partially lacking synovial fluid or whatever. I gathered the dropped can of hairspray on the way out, not wanting to leave any evidence lying around with my fingerprints on it.

Subterfuge—I was getting alarmingly thoughtful about such things.

It was almost as dark outside as it was in the bomb shelter, and I knew it was for the best. The less people that saw us, the better. I turned off the flashlight and navigated out using the natural light from the sky. Robby trailed behind me slightly, holding onto my hand as I hobbled more than hopped to the car. At least my leg was making progress, so I had that—but not much else—going for me at the moment. I didn't even know how I was going to drive a stick shift with only one and a half functional legs. Typical Riley luck.

It did make me consider investing in something that was easy to drive when injured, though. If this job was any indication to what I had to look forward to in my possibly newly chosen line of work, then I would need it. I shook my head at that thought and commanded myself to focus on getting out of here.

I had to buckle Robby into the backseat, because he was too in shock to do it himself. Or at least I thought it was shock. He was just kind of zombie-like. I hoped he was just tired, because Tracy had obviously been dealing with a bratty, homicidal little changeling, and to get her son back only to find he was just kind of…blah…would be really hard for her. As if getting the life slowly drained out of her wasn't already hard enough. Po-ta-to, po-tah-to.

Finding the McCabe house was a lot more difficult in the dark, but eventually I did. And I only killed the car four separate times when my left leg refused to smoothly release the clutch. All things considering, I got us home in one piece.

Robbie was still zombie when I turned off my car, but he sat up a little when he recognized his house. "Here we are," I said, trying to be cheerful. "Should we go find your mom?" Robby's eyes finally met mine in the rearview mirror, if only for a tiny flash of acknowledgement, and he nodded slowly. Yatzee, Riley Stewart, trauma buster aficionado.

I also reveled in the fact that Robby was just Robby in the mirror. No funky mouth, no weird eyes. He was just a vanilla human, and I loved it. He unbuckled himself, and I levered myself out of the car. Together, we walked up the walkway and onto the porch.

Annoyingly enough, the door was locked, but I picked the lock with pick set I had stolen from Libby. The door swung open, and we moved inside quietly—first me then Robby. Putting out a hand, I motioned for Robby to stay back before pulling out my impromptu flamethrower. Then I made a slow, cautious circuit throughout the downstairs. It wasn't big, only four major rooms, but I was being methodical and meticulous, trying not to miss something.

When I didn't find anything, I moved back to the entry, taking the time to pat Robby's shoulder in comfort. "Be right back," I whispered, eyeing the stairs. I hadn't found any downstairs bedrooms, which meant that both Tracy's and Robby's rooms were probably upstairs. So, as quietly as possible, I took the stairs one at a time with my lighter/hairspray duo held ready.

The first room I found on the second floor was definitely Robby's. It had a bunch of toys in it, and the bedding had the ninja turtles pictured in bold colors, which was kind of awesome. The door was already open, though, and Faux Robby was nowhere to be found. Not so awesome.

The next doorway I peeked into was the bathroom. No one was in there either. After that came a couple of closets and what looked like an office, but other than that, there was only one door left to check.

It was at the end of the hall, and I had a feeling it was the master bedroom. I was right.

Turning the doorknob as quietly as possible, I pushed the door open with my knee and immediately got ready to blast the changeling with flames. But it wasn't in the room.

Tracy was, though. She was collapsed on her side on the bed, with her hair carefully brushed away from the back of her neck. There was also the faint scent of smoke in the air.

I hurried to her side, feeling for a pulse on her neck. She was breathing, and her pulse was steady, albeit weaker than I would have liked. She didn't wake when I touched her, didn't even twitch, and I was kind of glad she was so out of it. I wouldn't know what to do if she'd woken up.

Satisfied that she was okay, I stepped back and raised my eyebrows, contemplating the implication of what had happened. Torching the mother changeling apparently torched the kid, too. Good to know, and I didn't feel the least bit bad about it seeing as how the little creep had been feeding or about to feed on Tracy when it'd happened.

I shuddered at the thought before remembered that Robby was still waiting for me. Hobbling like an old person, I stopped halfway down the stairs and motioned him up. We went to the bathroom, where I cleaned most of the grime off him, and then to his bedroom for clean pajamas. Finally, unwilling to make him wait any longer, I took him to Tracy's room.

He started crying the instant he saw her and ran to snuggling up next to her on the bed. "Mommy," he whimpered again and again, burying his face in her shoulder. For a second she didn't move, but then her hand twitched up towards Robby, stroking the back of his head. It had to have been pure reflex, because she was still totally out of it.

Robby started crying harder when she touched him, and I didn't blame him. Almost being kidnapped by vampires had been traumatizing enough for me. Actually getting kidnapped and then fed on repeatedly would have put me over the edge. But kids were great like that, they bounced back. Eventually.

Tracy stirred, and I wondered if she was actually being brought out of her almost-coma by the sound of her child crying. Apparently she was, because she groaned and moved her head a little. Score one for motherhood. "Robby?" She slurred, sounding slightly hung over, which I supposed she was in a way.

"Momma," was all Robby choked out.

"Robby." It wasn't a question. It was a statement. She knew it was him. The real him. Good. That was good. That meant I didn't have to stick around and try to explain the craziness that I knew very little about.

I turned away quietly, making my exit before Tracy had the chance to see or hear me. It was weird and slightly creeper-ish, sneaking out of her house like that. But I'd done my job, so I was no longer needed. I locked the door on my way out, amazed at how stealthy I was being despite my slightly-less-gimpy leg. Then I climbed into my car, put it in neutral, and rolled backwards out of her driveway.

Once I was even the other neighbor's driveway, I flicked on my lights and started my car. When I pulled away, it was like I'd never been there at all. It was vaguely disappointing that no one would know what I'd done. Robby would probably forget me later in life, and no one else would even know what had happened. I wondered if this was how Sam and Dean felt all the time, kind of wanting recognition but knowing no one else could ever really know. It made me glad I had thanked Dean when I had. Still, recognition and thanks weren't why I had gotten into Hunting. Making sure people were safe was, and I had done that today, so that was good enough for me.

I made it all the way back to the motel without killing the car once, a testament to the returning function of my leg. When I got in the shower and all the dirt washed off, I grimaced down at my thigh. "Wow. That is super attractive," I noted, frowning down at the spectacular shoe print bruise that graced my somewhat pale skin. It was a nice spectrum of blue and purple and dark red, which meant I'd be wearing jeans for a while, then.

The bruise on my jaw was less spectacular. It was more of a raised bump than a bruise, but it would probably darken more in the coming days. It was ridiculous, though, because the mother changeling had barely grazed me. I added "excessive strength" to my mental write-up of changelings. Then a thought occurred to me. I shouldn't be doing mental write-ups. I should be doing actual write-ups. There were probably loads of monsters out there, and there was no way I'd remember all the little quirks and instructions for more than a few. I would need, like, a log book or a journal or something.

I thought about it some more as I got ready for bed. Maybe I could do this thing. Maybe I could be a Hunter. I sniffed, rubbing my nose tiredly and biting my lip. Or maybe I would go to college and try that first. I was only eighteen. I had my whole life ahead of me. It wouldn't hurt to give college a try and decide if that was for me. I _had_ promised to try and be normal, and college was normal. Normal-ish.

Tossing my towel away, I collapsed onto the bed and sighed. It was only eleven o'clock at night, but I was knackered. And really, since I was tired enough, even the crappy motel bed felt like heaven. My muscles did that loose, rubbery melting thing, and I wondered if it was possible to put down roots. Considering my luck, maybe.

I sighed and closed my eyes. I had done it. I had killed two changelings, even if one was only by proxy. Surprisingly, I didn't feel like a complete monster for doing it. But I didn't feel particularly good about it either. I was just kind of blasé about the whole thing. However, I did feel good about helping Tracy and Robby, and that kind of made it worth the self-doubt.

"I saved them," I said out load, not even meaning to. "I, Riley Stewart, was able to save two completely normal people today. They shall go on to live completely normal lives because I saved them. Yay, team." And that felt right. Despite my continued misgivings, it really, really felt right.


	8. Riley Teaser

A/N: The next Riley adventure might be a little longer. So I'm starting it as a whole new story, yay! :) Thanks for all those who faithfully review. It means a lot to know people care enough to give feedback. Thanks! Anyways, sidenote: rooting for Brazil in the World Cup-woohoo! Stay tuned for more Riley shenanigans. Allons-y!

* * *

The spirit wasn't trying to kill me, which threw me for a loop.

It was a girl, maybe in her mid-twenties. She was wearing a shockingly short mini-skirt and a silvery tank top, matched with some flashy cowboy boots. Silver bangles adorned one wrist, and I could clearly see the stamp for some club on the back of her hand. And for some reason she looked kind of shiny, like she was covered with liquid or something.

"Help…me…" she whispered, barely loud enough to hear. I lowered my salt gun, but I couldn't help taking a reflexive step backwards. She disappeared then reappeared right in front of me, but she still didn't try to hurt me. It was disconcerting, to say the least. In fact, all she did was hold out a hand towards me. "Help…me…" she repeated desperately.

"I don't—I don't know how," I stammered, completely taken aback. She flickered in place a little, fading around the edges. "You're dead. How do I put you to rest?"

"Help…me…" she whispered, using the exact same cadence and inflection as before. It was worse, so much worse than facing down a violent spirit. She was so lost, so confused, that I wanted to help her, I really did. Only, the coroner had her remains, so I couldn't salt-and-burn them. I wanted to help her, but I didn't know how, and somehow that made it worse.

"Help," she whispered, big brown eyes rolling to meet mine.

"I don't know how! Tell me how," I pleaded.

One hand went to her throat and the other thrashed around above her. "Help…me…"

I stopped concentrating on her face and tried to look at her from a big picture perspective, taking in the strange sheen about her, her straggly strands of hair, and the awkward thrashing. "You drowned," I said faintly, already having guessed that in relation to the other drownings. "The ghost of the lake got you, didn't he?" But why would just drowning be enough to hold her back? There had to be more.

She shook her head, and her fingers frantically clawed the air in front of her own throat while her face screwed up in panic. Her free hand bunched into a fist and was still thrashing, as if beating against something. My eyes widened, and my hand flashed to cover my mouth as I sucked in a horrified breath. Oh my gosh. My heart started beating a million miles an hour, and I moved my hand down to my chest, as if that would slow it down. "Someone…someone drowned you," I ventured, sickened.

She went unnaturally still, and her dead eyes bored into mine.

"Help…me…"

Oh, crap. What the hell kind of case had I started working?


	9. UPDATE

Hey, y'all. I had a request to post here when my new Riley adventure is up and running. So this is that. Or that is this. Either way, you can go check it out if you want. :) Also, review or PM me if you want to see Riley go up against something in specific. I am always open to bouncing ideas back and forth with people. Special thanks to Anna Sela, who lets me ask her weird questions about fire, explosions, and random plot gimmicks.

-Wookie


End file.
